

















.^\* 

















MAN 



{NOTES AND RECOLLECTIONS) 



\i 



TWO VOLUMES IN ONE 




D. 



NEW YORK 
APPLETON AiND COMPANY 
1893 






Authorized Edition. 



By 

iAN3 1907 



UKITSD STATES 



!1^/H£:jt or ,^ 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

The Quartier-Latin in the late thirties— The difference between then and 
now — A caricature on the walls of Paris — I am anxious to be intro- 
duced to the quarter whence it emanated— I am taken to " La Childe- 
bert," and make the acquaintance of the original of the caricature — 
The story of Bouginier and his nose — Dantan as a caricaturist — He 
abandons that branch of art after he has made Madame Malibran burst 
into tears at the sight of her statuette — How Bouginier came to be im- 
mortalized on the fa(jade of the Passage du Caire — One of the first co- 
operative societies in France — An artists' hive — The origin of " La 
Ohildebert"— Its tenants in my time— The proprietress— Madame 
Chanfort, the providence of poor painters — Her portraits sold after her 
death — High jinks at "La Childebert" — The Childebertians and their 

Seacefully inclined neiglibours — Gratuitous batiis and compulsory 
ouches at "La Childebert" — The proprietress is called upon to re- 
Sair the roof— The Childebertians bivouac on the Place St. Germain- 
es-Pres — They start a " Society for the Conversion of the Mahomet- 
ans" — The public subscribe liberally — What becomes of the subscrip- 
tions?— My visits to "La Childebert" breed a taste for the other 
amusements of the Quartier-Latin — Bobino and its entertainments — 
The audience — The manager — His stereotyped speech — The reply in 
chorus — Woe to the bourgeois-intruder — Stove-pipe hats a rarity in 
the Quartier-Latin — The dress of the collegians — Their mode of living 
— Suppers when money was fiush, rolls and milk when it was not — 
A fortune-teller in tlie Eue de Tournon — Her prediction as to the 
future of Josephine de Beauharnais — The allowance to students in 
those days — The Odeon deserted — Students' habits — The Chaumiere — 
Rural excm'sions — Pere Bonvin's 1 

CHAPTER IL 

My introduction to the celebrities of the day — The Cafe de Paris — The old 
Prince Demidott — The old man's mania — His sons — The furniture and 
attendance at the Cafe de Paris — Its high prices — A mot of Alfred de 
Musset — The cuisine — A rebuke of the proprietor to Balzac — A ver- 
sion by one of his predecessors of the cause of Vatel's suicide — Some 
of the habitues — Their intercourse with the attendants — Their cour- 
teous behaviour towards one another— Le veau a la casserole — What 
Alfred de Musset, Balzac, and Alexandre Dumas thought of it — A 
silhouette of Alfred de Musset — His brother Paul on his election as a 
member of the Academic — A silhouette of Balzac, between sunset and 
sunr'se — A curious action against the publishers of an almanack — A 

(iii) 



{y AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

PAGE 

full-lenarth portrait of Balzac — His pecuniary embarrassments — Ilis 
visions of wealth and speculations — His constant neglect of his duties 
as a National Guai'd — His troubles in consequence thereof — L'Hotel 
des Haricots — Some of his fellow-prisoners — Adam, the composer of 
" Le Postilion de Lonjumeau " — Eugene Sue ; his portrait — His dandy- 
ism — The origin of the Paris Jockey Club— Eugene Sue becomes a 
member— The success of " Les Mysteres de Paris " — The origin of " Le 
Juif-Errant" — Sue makes himsell;' objectionable to the members of the 
Jockey Club — His name struck oti' the ILst — His decline and disap- 
pearance 24 

CHAPTER III. 

Alexandre Dumas pere — Why he made himself particularly agreeable to 
Englishmen — His way of silencing people — The pursuit he 'loved best 
next to literature — He has the privilege of going down to the kitchens 
of the Cafe de Paris — No one questions his literary genius, ^ome ques- 
tion his culinary capacities — Dr. Veron and his eordon-bleu — Dr. 
Veron's reasons for dining out instead of at home — Dr. Veron's friend, 
the philanthropist, who cloes not go to the theatre because he objects 
to be hurried with his emotions— Dr. Veron, instigated by his cook, 
accuses Dumas of having collaborateurs in preparing his dishes as he 
v/as known to have collaborateui-s in his literary work— Dumas' wrath 
— He invites us to a dinner which shall be wholly cooked by him in 
the presence of a delegate to be chosen by the guests — The' lot falls 
upon me — Dr. Veron and Sophie make the amende honorable — A din- 
ner-party at Veron's — A curious lawsuit in connection with Weber's 
"Freyschutz" — Nestor Roqueplan, who became the successor of the 
defendant in the case, suggests a way out of it — Leon Pillet virtually 
adopts it and wins the day — A similar plan adopted years before by a 
fireman on duty at the opera, on being tried by court-martial for hav- 
ing faUen asleep during the performance of '' Guido et Genevra " — 
Firemen not bad judges of plays and operas^They were often con- 
sulted both by ISIeyerbeer and Dumas — Dumas at work — How he idled 
his time away — Dumas causes the tratfic receipts of the Chemin de Fer 
de rOuest to swell during his three yeai-s' residence at Saint-Germain 
— M. de Montalivet advises Louis- I^liilippe to invite Dumas to Ver- 
sailles, to see what his presence will do for the royal city — Louis- 
Philippe does not act upon the advice — The relations between Dumas 
and the d'Orleans family— After the Revolution of '48, Dumas becomes 
a candidate for parliament — The story of his canvass and his address 
to the electors at Joigny— Dumas' utter inditFerence to money matters 
— He casts his burdens upon others— Dumas and his creditors — Writs 
and disti'aints — How they are dealt with — Dumas' indiscriminate gen- 
erosity — A dozen houses full of new furniture in half as many years 
— Dumas' frugality at table — Literary remuneration— Dumas and his 
son — '' Leave me a hundred francs" 43 

CHAPTER IV. 

Dr. Louis Veron — The real man as distinguished from that of his own 
"Memoirs^' — He takes the management of the Paris Opera — How it 
was governed before his advent — Meyerbeer's "Robert le Diable" 
underlined — Meyerbeer and his doubts upon the merits of his work — 
Meyerbeer's generosity — Meyerbeer and the beggars of the Rue Le 
Peletier—Dr/ Veron, the inventor of the modern newspaper puff- 
Some specimens of advertisements in their infancy--Dr. Veron takes 



CONTEXTS. V 

PAGE 

a leaf from the book of Moliere — Dr. Veron's love of money — His 
superstitions — His objections to travelling in railways — He quotes the 
Queen of England as an example — When Queen Victoria overcomes 
her objection^Veron holds out — "' Queen Victoria has got a successor: 
the Veron dynasty begins and ends with me" — Thirteen at table— I 
make the acquaintance of Taglioni — The woman and the ballerian — 
Her ad\'enture at Perth — An improvised performance of "Nathalie, 
la Laitiere Suisse" — Another adventure in Russia — A modern Claude 
Du-Val — My last meeting with Taglioni — A dinner-party at De 
Morny's — A comedy scene between husband and wife — Flotow, the 
composer of" Martha" — His family — His father's objection to the com- 
posers profession — The latter's interview with M. de Saint-Georges, 
the author of the libretto of Balfe's " Bohemian Girl " — M. de Saint- 
Georges prevails upon the father to let his son study in Paris for live 
years, and to provide for him during that time — The supplies are 
stopped on the last day of the fifth year — Flotow, at the advice of M. 
.de Saint-Georges, stays on and lives by giving piano-lessons — His 
earthly possessions at his first success — " Kob Roy " at tlie Hotel Cas- 
tellane— Lord Granville's opinion of the music— The Hotel Castel- 
lane and some Paris salons during Louis-Philippe's reign — The Prin- 
cesse de Lieven's, M. Thiers', etc. — What Madame de Girardin's was 
like — Victor Hugo's— Perpetual adoration; very artistic, but nothing 
to eat or to drink— The salon of the ambassador of the Two Sicilies — 
Lord and Lady Granville at the English Embassy— The salon of Count 
Apponyi — A story connected with it — Furniture and entertainments 
— Cakes, ices, and tea; no champagne as during the Second Empire — 
Tne Hotel Castellane and its amal'eur theatricals — Rival companies — 
No under-studies — Lord Brougliam at the Hotel Castellane— His bad 
French and his would-be Don Juanism — A French rendering of 
Shakespeare's " There is but one step between the sublime and the 
ridiculous," as applied to Lord Brougham — He nearly accepts a part in 
a farce where his bad French is likely to produce a comic effect — His 
successor as a murderer of the language — M. de Saint-Georges — Like 
Moliere, he reads his plays to his housekeeper — When the latter is not 
satisfied, the dinner is spoilt, however ^reat the success of the play in 

Sublic estimation — Great men and their housekeepers — Turner, Jean 
acques Rousseau, Eugene Delacroix , . . ... .62 

CHAPTER V. 

The Boulevards in the forties — The Chinese Baths — A favourite tobacconist 
of Alfred de Musset — The price of cia:ars — The diligence still the usual 
mode of travelling — Provincials in taris — Parliamentary see-saw be- 
tween M. Thiers and M. Guizot — Amenities of editors — An advocate 
of universal suffrage — Distribution of gratuitous sausages to the work- 
ing man on the king's birthday — The rendezvous of actors in search 
of an engagement — Frederick l^emaitre on the eve of appearing in a 
new part — The Legitimists begin to leave their seclusion and to mingle 
with the bourgeoisie — Alexandre Dumas and Scribe — The latter's fer- 
tility as a playwright— The National Guards go shooting, in uniform 
and in companies, on the Plaine Saint-Denis — Vidocq's private in- 
quiry office in the Rue Vivienne — No river-side resorts — The plaster 
elephant on the Place de la Bastille — The sentimental romances of 
Loisa Puget — The songs of the working classes — Cheap bread and wine 
— How they enjoyed themselves on Sundays and holidays — Theophile 
Gautier's pony-carriage — The hatred of the bourgeoisie— Nestor Roque- 
plan's expression of it — Gavarni's — M. Thiers' sister keeps a restaurant 
at the corner of the Rue Drouot— When he is in power, the members 



^i AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 



of the Opposition go and dine there, and publish facetious accounts of 
the entertainment— All appearances to the contrary, people like Guizot 
better than Thiers — But few entries for the race for wealth in those 
days— The Rothschilds still live in the Hue Latitte— Favourite lounges 
— The Boulevards, the Rue Le Peletier, and the Passage de I'Opera— 
The Opera— The Rue Le Peletier and its attractions— The Restaurant 
of Paolo Broggi— The Estaniinet du Divan— Literary waiters and Boni- 
lace— Major Fraser— The mystery surrounding his origin— Another 
mysterious personage — The Passage de I'Opera is invaded by the 
stockjobbers, and loses its prestige as a promenade — Bernard Latte's, 
the publisher of Donizetti's operas, becomes deserted— Tortoni's— 
Louis-Blanc— His scruples as an editor— A few words about duelling 
—Two tragic meetings— Lola Montes —Her adventurous career— A 
celebrated trial— My hrst meeting with Gustave Flaubert, the author 
of '^Madame Bovary" and " Salambo "— Eniile de Girardin— His 
opinion of duelling— My decision with regard to it— The original of 
"La Dame aux Camelias"— Her parentage— Alexandre Dumas gives 
the diagnosis of her character in connection with his son's play— 
L'Homme au Camellia— M. Lautour-Mezerai, the inventor of children's 
periodical literature in France— Auguste Lireux— He takes the manage- 
ment of the Odeon— Balzac again— His schemes, his greed— Lireux 
more fortunate with other authore— Anglophobia on the French stage 
— Gallophobia on the English stage 86 

CHAPTER VI. 

Rachel and some of her fellow- actors — Rachel's true character — Her greedi- 
ness and spitefulness — Her vanity and her wit — Her powers of fascina- 
tion—The cost of being fascinated by her — Her manner of levying toll 
— Some of her victims, Comte ]>uchatel and Dr. Veron — The story of 
her guitar— A little transaction between her and M. Fould— Her s'up- 
posed charity and generosity — Ten tickets for a charity concert — How 
she made them into twenty — How she could have made them into a 
hundred — Baron Taylor puzzled — Her manner of giving presents — 
Beauvallet's precaution with regard to one of her gifts — Alexandre 
Dumas the younger, wiser or perhaps not so wise in his generation- 
Rachel as a raconteuse — The story of her debut at the Gymnase^What 
Rachel would have been as an actor instead of an actress — Her comic 
genius — Rachel's mother — What became of Rachel's money — Mama 
Felix as a pawnljroker — Rachel's trinkets — Two curious bracelets — 
Her first appearance before Nicholas I. — A dramatic recital in the 
open air — Rachel's opinion of the handsomest man in Europe — Rachel 
and Samson — Her obligations to him — How she repays them— How 
she goes to Berry er to be coached in the fable of "The^Two Pigeons" 
— An anecdote of Berryer — Rachel's fear of a " warm reception ""on the 
first night of "Adrienne Lecouvreur" — How she averts the danger — 
Samson as a man and as an actor — Petticoat-revolts at the Comedie- 
Frangaise — Samson and Regnier as buifers — Their different ways of 
pouring oil upon the troubled waters — Mdlle. Sylvanie Plessy — A 
parallel between her and Sarah Bernhardt — Samson and Regnier's pride 
in their profession — The ditferent character of that pride— "Apollo 
with a bad tailor, and who dresses without a looking-glass" — Samson 
gives a lesson in declamation to a procureur-imperial — The secret of 
Regnier's greatness as an actor — A lesson at the Conservatoire— Reg- 
nier on " make-up " — Regnier's opinion of genius on the stage — A mot 
of Augustine Brohan — Giovanni, the wigmaker of the Comedie-Fran- 
9aise — His pride in his profession — M. Ancessy, the musical director, 
and his three wigs 128 



CONTEXTS. vii 

CHAPTER VII. 

PAGE 

Two composers, Auber and Felicien David — Auber, the legend of his youth- 
ful appearance — How it arose — His daily rides, his love of women's 
society — His mot on Mozart's "Don Juan" — The only drawback to 
Auber's enjoyment of women's society — His reluctance to take his hat 
off— How he' managed to keep it on most of the time — His opinion 
upon Meyerbeer's and Halevy's genius — His opinion upon Gerard de 
Iserval, who hanged himself with his hat on — tiis love of solitude — ■ 
His fondness of Paris — His grievance against his mother for not hav- 
ing given him birth there — He refuses to leave Paris at the commence- 
ment of the siege — His small appetite — He proposes to write a new 
opera when the Prussians are gone — Auber suffers no privations, but 
has difficulty in finding fodder for his horse — The Parisians claim it 
for food — Another legend about Auber's independence of sleep — How 
and where he generally slept — Why Auber snored in Veron's com- 
pany, and why ne did not in that of other people — His capacity for 
work — Auber a brilliant talker — Auber's gratitude to the artists who 
interpreted his work, but different from Meyerbeer's — The reason why, 
according to Auber — Jealousy or humility — Auber and the younger 
Coquelin — " The verdict on all things in this world may be summed 
up in the one phrase, 'It's an injustice'" — Felicien David— The man 
— The beginnings of his career — His terrible poverty — He joins the 
Saint-Simoniens, and goes with some of them to the East — Their re- 
ception at Constantinople — M. Scribe and the libretto of " L'Africaine " 
— David in Egypt at the court of Mehemet-Ali — David's description 
of him — Mehemet's way of testing the educational progress of his sons 
— Woe to the fat kine — Mehemet-Ali suggests a new mode of teaching 
music to the inmates of the harem — Felicien David's further wander- 
ings in Egypt — Their effect upon his musical genius — His return to 
France — He tells the story of the first performance of "Le Desert" — 
An ambulant box-office — His success — Fame, but no money — He sells 
the score of "Le Desert" — He loses his savings — "La Perle du Bre- 
sil" and the Coup-d'Etat — "No luck" — Napoleon III. remains his 
debtor for eleven years — A mot of Auber, and one of Alexandre Du- 
mas pere — The story of " Aida " — Why Felicien David did not com- 
pose the music — The real author of the libretto 162 

CHAPTER Vin. 



Three painters, and a school for pifferari — Gabriel Decamps, Eugene De- 
lacroix, and Horace Vernet — The prices of pictures in tne forties — De- 
lacroix' find no purchasers at all — Decamps' drawings fetch a thousand 
francs each — Decamps not a happy man — The cause of his unhappi- 
ness — The man and the painter — lie finds no pleasure in being popular 
— Eugene Delacroix — His contempt for the bourgeoisie — A parallel 
between Delacroix and Shakespeare — Was Delacroix tall or snort? — 
His love of fiowers — His delicate health — His personal appearance — 
His indift'erence to the love-passion — George Sand and Delacroix — 
A miscarried love-scene — Delacroix' housekeeper, Jenny Leguillou — 
Delacroix does not want to pose as a model for one of George Sand's 
heroes — Delacroix as a writer — His approval of Carlyle's dictum, 
" Show me how a man sings," etc. — His humour tempered by his rev- 
erence —His failure as a caricaturist — His practical jokes on would-be 
art-critics — Delacroix at home — His dress while at work — Horace Ver- 
net's, Paul Delaroche's, Ingres' — Early at work — He does not waste 
time over lunch — How he "spent his evenings — His dislike of being 
reproduced in marble or on canvas after hig death— Horace Vernet— 



viii AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

PAGE 

The contrast between the two men and the two artists — Vernet's ap- 
pearance—His own account of how he became a painter — Moral and 
mental resemblance to Alexandre Dumas pere— His political opinions 
— Vernet and Nicholas I. — A bold answer — His opinion on the mental 
state of the Romanoffs — The comic side of Vernet's character — He 
thinks himself a Vauban — His interviews with M. Thiers — His admira- 
tion for everything military — His worship of Alfred de Vigny — His in- 
etfectual attempts to paint a scene in connection with the storming of 
Constantine — Laurent-Jan proposes to write an epic on it — He gives a 
synopsis of the cantos— Laurent- Jan lives "on the fat of the land" 
for six months — A son of Napoleon's companion in exile, General Ber- 
trand — The chaplain of " la Belle-Poule " — The first French priest who 
wore the English dress — Horace Vernet and the veterans of' la grande 
armee " — His studio during their occupancy of it as models — His budget 
— His hatred of pitferari — A professor — The Quartier-Latin revisited . 164 

CHAPTER IX. 

Louis-Philippe and his family — An unpublished theatrical skit on his 
mania for shaking hands with every one — His art of governing, ac- 
cording to the same skit — Louis-Philippe not the ardent admirer of 
the bourgeoisie he professed to be — The Faubourg Saint-Germain de- 
serts the Tuileries — The English in too great a majority — Lord 's 

opinion of the dinners at the Tuileries — The attitude of the bour- 

feoisie towards Louis-Philippe, according to the King himself — Louis- 
'hilippe's wit — His final words on the aeath of Talleyrand — His love 
of money — He could be generous at times — A story of the Palais-Royal 
— Louis-Philippe and the Marseillaise— Two curious stories connected 
with the Marseillaise — Who was the composer of it ? — Louis-Philippe's 
opinion of the throne, the crown, and the sceptre of France as ad- 
ditions to one's comfort — His children, and especially his sons, take 
things more easily — Even the Bonapartists admired some of the latter 
— A°mot of an Imperialist — How the boys were brought up— Their 
nocturnal rambles later on — The King himself does not seem to mind 
those escapades, but is frightened at M. Guizot hearing of them — Louis- 
Philippe did not understand Guizot — The recollection of his former 
misery frequently haunts the Kinar — He worries Queen Victoria with 
his fear of becoming poor — Louis-Philippe an excellent husband and 
father — He wants to write the libretto of an opera on an English sub- 
ject — His religion — The court receptions ridiculous — Even the prole- 
tariat sneer at them — The entree of the Duchesse d'Orleans into Paris 
— The scene in the Tuileries gardens — A mot of Princesse Clementine 
on her fathers too paternal solicitude — A practical joke of the Prince 
de Joinville — His caricatures and drawings — The children inherited 
their talent for drawing and modelling from their mother — The Due 
de Nemours as a miniature and water-colour painter — Suspected of 
being a Legitimist— All Louis-Philippe's children great patrons of art 
—How the Dourgeoisie looked upon their intercourse with artists — The 
Due de Nemours' marvellous memory — The studio of Eugene Lami — 
His neighbours, Paul Delaroche and Honore de Balzac — The Due de 
Nemours' bravery called in question— The Due d'Aumale's exploits in 
Algeria considered mere skirmishes — A curious story of spiritism — The 
Due d'Aumale a greater favourite with the world tlum any of the other 
sons of Louis-Philippe — His wit — The Due d'Orleans also a great fa- 
vourite — His visits to Decamps' studio — An inditferent classical scholar 
T-A curious kind of black-mail — His indifi'erence to money — There 
-is no money in a Republic— His death — A witty reply to the Le- 
- gitimists . 185 



CONTENTS. ix 

CHAPTER X. 

PAGE 

The Kevolution of '48 — The beginning of it — The National Guards in all 
their glory — The Cafe Gregoire on the Place du Caire — The price of a 
good Dreakfast in '48 — The palmy days of the Cuisine Bourgeoise — 
The excitement on the Boulevards on Sunday, February 20tli, '48 — 
The theatres — A ball at Poirson's, the erstwhile director of the Gym- 
nase — A lull in the storm — Tuesday, February 22nd — Another visit to 
the Cafe Gregoire — On my way thither — The Comedie-Frangaise closes 
its doors — ^^^lat it means, according to my old tutor — We are waited 
upon by a sergeant and corporal — We are no longer " messieurs," but 
■ " citoyens " — An eye to the main chance — The patriots do a bit of busi- 
ness in tricolour cockades— The company marches away — Casualties — 
" Le patriotisme" means the difterence between the louis d'or and the 
ecu of three francs — The company bivouacs on the Boulevard Saint- 
Martin — A tyrant's victim ^^ malgre lui'''' — Wednesday, February 23rd 
— The Cafe Gregoire once more — The National Guards en neglige — A 
novel mode of "settling accounts — The National Guards fortify the 
inner man — A bivouac on the Boulevard du Temple — A camp scene 
from an opera— I leave — My companion's account — The National 
Guards protect the regulars— The author of these notes goes to the 
theatre — The Gymnase and the Varietes on the eve of theKevolution 
— Boufife and Dejazet — Thursday, February 24th, '48 — The Boulevards 
at 9.30 a. m. — No milk — The Revolutionaries do without it — The Place 
du Carrousel — The sovereign people fire from the roofs on the troops 
— The troops do not dislodge them — The King reviews the troops — 
The apparent inactivity of Louis-Philippe's sons— A theory about the 
ditference in bloodshed — One of the three ugliest men in France comes 
to see the King — Seditious cries — The King abdicates — Chaos — The 
sacking of the Tuileries — Receptions and feasting in the Galerie de 
Diane — " Du cafe pour nous, des cigarettes pour les dames" — The 
dresses of the princesses — The bourgeois feast the gamins who guard 
the barricades — The Republic proclaimed — The ritf-ratf insist "upon 
illuminations — An actor promoted to the Governorship of the Hotel 
de Ville — Some members of the "provisional Government" at work — 
Mery on Lamartine— Why the latter proclaimed the Ri^public . . 208 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Second Republic — Lamartine's reason for proclaiming it — Suspects 
Louis-Napoleon of similar motives for wishing to overthrow it — Tells 
him to go back to England— De Persigny's"" account of Louis-Napo- 
leon's landing in France after February" 24th, '48— Providential inter- 
ference on behalf of Louis-Napoleon — Justification of Louis-Napoleon's 
belief in his " star"— My first meeting with him— The origin of a cele- 
brated nickname— Badin^uet a creation of Gavarni — Louis-Napoleon 
and his surroundings at the Hotel du Rhin— His appearance and dress 
— Lord Normanby's opinion of his appearance — Louis-Napoleon's 
French — A mot of Bismarck — Cavaignac, Thiers, and Victor Hugo's 
wrong estimate of his character— Cavaignac and his brother Godefroi 
— The difterence between Thiers and General Cavaignac — An elector's 
mot — Some of the candidates for the presidency of the Second Republic 
—Electioneering expenses — Impecuniosity of Louis-Napoleon — A story 
in connection with it — The woman with the wooden legs — The salons 
during the Second Republic — The theatres and their skits on the 
situation— '• La Propriety c'est le Vol "—France governed by the Xa- 
tional—A curious list of ministei-s and officials of the Second Repub- 
^ lie — Armand Marrast — His plans for reviving business — His receptions 



X AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

PAGE 

at the Palais-Bourbon as President of the Chamber of Deputies — 
Some of the guests — The Corps Diplomatique — The new deputies, 
then* wives and daughters 232 

CHAPTER XII. 

Guizot, Lamartine, and Beranger — Public opinion at sea with regard to the 
real Guizot — People fail to see the real man behind the politician — 
Guizot regrets this false conception — " I have not the courage to be 
unpopular" — A tilt at Thiers — My first meeting with him — A picture 
and the story connected with it— M. Guizot ""at home " — His apart- 
ment — The company — M. Guizot on " the Spanish marriages " — His 
indictment against Lord Palmerston— An incident in connection with 
Napoleon's tomb at the Invalides — Nicolas I. and Napoleon — My sub- 
sequent intimacy with M. Guizot — Guizot as a father — His correspond- 
ence with his daughters — A story of Henry Murger and Marguerite 
Thuillier — M. Guizot makes up his mind not to live in Paris any longer 
— M. Guizot on " natural scenery " — Never saw the sea until he was 
over fifty — Why M. Guizot did not like the country; why M. Thiers 
did not like it — Thiers the only man at whom Guizot tilted — M. Guizot 
died poor — M. de Lamartlne's poverty did not inspire the same re- 
spect — Lamartine's impecuniosity — My only visit to Lamartine's house 
— Du Jellaby dore — With a difi'erence — All the stories and anecdotes 
about M. de liamartine relate to his improvidence and impecuniosity — 
Ten times worse in that respect than Balzac — M. Guizot's literary pro- 
ductions and M. de Lamartine's — The national subscription raised for 
the latter — How he anticipates some of the money — Berano'er — My 
first acquaintance with him— Beranger's verdict on the SeconcT Repub- 
lic — Beranger's constant flittings — i)islikes popularity — The true story 
of Beranger and Mdlle, J udith'Frere 249 

CHAPTER Xin. 

Some men of the Empire — Fialin de Persigny — The public prosecutor's 
opinion of him expressed at the trial for high treason in 1836 — Superior 
in many respects to Louis-Napoleon— The revival of the Empire his 
only and constant dream— In order to realize it, he appeals first to 
Jerome, ex-King of Westphalia — De Persigny's estimate of him — 
Jerome's greed and Louis- Napoleon's generosity — De Persigny's finan- 
cial embarrassments — His charity — What the Empire really meant to 
him— De Persigny virtually the movnig spirit in the Coup d'Etat — 
Louis-Napoleon might have been satisfied with the presidency of the 
republic for life— Persigny seeks for aid in England— Palmerston's 
share in the Coup d'Etat— The submarine cable— Preparations for the 
Coup d'Etat— A warning of it sent to England — Count Walewski issues 
invitations for a dinner-party on the 2nd of December— Opinion in 
London that Louis-Napoleon will get the worst in the struggle with 
the Chamber— The last funds from London— General de Saint-'Arnaud 
and Baron Lacrosse— The Elysee-Bourbon on the evening of the 1st 
of December— I pass the Elysee at midnii^ht- Nothinsr unusual— Lon- 
don on the 2nd of December— The dinner at Count Walewski's put oft 
at the last moment — Hluminations at the French Embassy a few hours 
later— Palmerston at the Embassy— Some traits of De Persigny's char- 
acter—His personal affection for Louis-Napoleon— Madanie "de Pcr- 
signy— Her parsimony— Her cookinsr of the household accounts— 
Chevet and Madame de Persigny — What the Empire miarht have been 
with a Von Moltke by the side of the Emperor instead of Vaillant, 



CONTENTS. xi 

PAGE 

Niel, and Leboeuf— Colonel (afterwards General) Fleury the only mod- 
est man among the Emperor's entourage— De Persigny's pretensions 
as a Heaven-born statesman — Mgr. de Merode — De Morny — His first 
meeting with his half-brother — De Morny as a grand seigneur — The 
origin of the Mexican campaign — Walewski — His fads — Kouher — My 
first sight of him in the QuaVtier-Latin — The Emperor's opinion of 
him at the beginning of his career— Rouher in his native home, Au- 
vergue — His marriage — Madame Rouher — His father-in-law . . , 261 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Society during the Second Empire— The Court at Compiegne— The Eng- 
lish element— Their opinion of Louis-Napoleon— The difference be- 
tween the court of Louis-Fhilippe and that of Napoleon III- The 
luggage of M. Villemain— The hunts in Louis-Philippe's time— Louis- 
Napoleon's advent — Would have made a better poet than an Emperor 
—Looks for a La Valliere or Montespan, and finds Mdlle. Eugenie de 
Montijo— The latter determined not to be a La Valliere or even a Pom- 
padour—Has her great destiny foretold in her youth— Makes up her 
mind that it shall be realized by a right-handed\and not a left-handed 
marriage — Queen Victoria stands her sponsor among the sovereigns of 
Europe— Mdlle. de Montijo's mother— The Comtesse de Montijo and 
Halevy's " Madame Cardinal "—The first invitations to Compieirne — 
Mdlle. de^Montijo's backers for the Imperial stakes— No other entries 
— Louis-Napoleon utters the word " marriage"— What led up to it — 
The Emperor otficially announces his betrotli'al— The effect it produced 
— The Faubourg St.-Germain — Dupin the elder gives his views — The 
engaged couple feel very uncomfortable — Negotiations to organize the 
Empress's future household — Rebuffs — Louis Napoleon's retorts — 
Mdlle. de Montijo's attempt at wit and sprightliness — Her iron will — 
Her beauty — Her marriage — She takes Marie- Antoinette for her model 
— She fondly imagines that she was born to rule — She presumes to 
teach Princess Clotilde the etiquette of courts— The story of two de- 
tectives — The hunts at Compiegne — Some of the mise en vscene and 
dramatis personce — The shooting-parties — Mre. Grundy not banished, 
but specially invited and drugged — The programme of the gatherings 
— Compiegne in the season — A story of an fi^nglishman accommodated 
for the night in one of the Imperiar luggage- vans 288 

CHAPTER XV. 

Society during the Empire — The series of guests at Compiegne — The amuse- 
ments — the absence of musical taste in the Bonapartes — The pro- 
gramme on the first, second, third, and fourth days — An anecdote of 
Lafontaine, the actor — Theatrical performances and balls — The ex- 
penses of the same — The theatre at Compiegne — The quests, male and 
female— " Neck or nothing" for the latter, uniform lor the former— 
The rest have to take " hack seats " — The selection of guests among 
the notabilities of Compiegne — A mayor's troubles — The Empress's 
and the Emperor's conflicting opinions with regard to female charms 
— Bassano in " hot water " — Tactics of the demi-mondaines — Improve- 
ment from the heraldic point of view in the Empress's entourage — The 
cocodettes — Their dress — Worth — When every pretext for a change of 
toilette is exhausted, the court ladies turn themselves into ballerinas — 
" Le Diable a Quatre " at Compiegne — The ladies appear at the ball 
afterwards in their gauze skirts— The Emperor's dictum with reorard to 
ballet-dancers and men's infatuation for them — The En)peror did not 



xii AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

PAGE 

like stupid women— The Emperor's " eye " for a handsome woman— 
The Empress does not admire the instinct— William I. of Prussia acts 
as comforter— The hunt— Actors, "supers," and spectators—" La Com- 
tesse d'Escarbagnas " — The Imperial procession— The Empress's and 
Emperor's unpunctuality— Louis-Napoleon not a " well-dressed man " 
— The Empress wished to get back before dark— The reason of this 
wish— Though unpunctual, punctual on hunt-days— The police meas- 
ures at those gatherings— M. Hyrvoix and M. Boitelle— The Empress 
did not like the truth, the Emperor did— Her anxiety to go to St. 
Lazare 304 

CHAPTER XVL 

The story of a celebrated sculptor and his model— David d' Angers at the 
funeral of Cortot, the sculptor — How I became acquainted with him — 
The sculptor leaves the funeral procession to speak to a woman— He 
tells me the story— David d' Angers' sympathy with Greece in her 
struggle for independence — When Botzaris falls at Missolonghi, he 
maize's up his mind to carve his monument — Wishes to do soniething 
original — He finds his idea in the cemetery of Pere-la-Chaise — In 
search of a model — Comes unexpectedly upon her in the Rue du Mont- 
parnasse, while in company of Victor Hugo — The model and her 
mother — The bronze Christ on the studio wall — David gives it to his 
model — The latter dismissed — A plot against the sculptor's life — His 
model saves him — He tries to find her and fails — Only meets with her 
when walking behind the hearse of Cortot— She appears utterly desti- 
tute — Loses sight of her again — Meets her on the outer boulevards 
with a nondescript of the worst character — He endeavours to rescue 
her, but fails— Canler, of the Paris police, reveals the tactics pursued 
with regard to "unfortunates" — David's exile and death — The Botzaris 
Monument is brought back to Paris to be restored — The model at the 
door of the exhibition — Her death 323 

CHAPTER XVn. 

Queen Victoria in Paris — The beginning of the era of middle-class excur- 
sions — English visitors before that — The British tourist of 1855— The 
real revenge of Waterloo — The Englishman's French and the French- 
man's English — The opening of the Exhibition — The lord mayor and 
aldermen in Paris — The King of Portugal— All these considered so 
much "small fry "—Napoleon III. goes' to Boulogne to welcome the 
Queen— Tlie royal yacht is delayed— The French hotel proprietor the 

greatest artist in lleeciug— The Italian, the Swiss, the German, mere 
unglers in comparison — Napoleon III. before the arrival of the Queen 
—Pondering the past— Arrival of the Queen— The Queen lands, fol- 
lowed by Prince Albei't and the royal children — The Emperor rides 
by the side of her carriage— Cojnments of the population — An old salt 
on the situation — An old' soldier's retort — The general feeling — Arrival 
in Paris — The Parisians' reception of the Queen— A description of the 
route— The apartments of the Queen at St. Cloud— How the Queen 
spent Sunday — Visits the art section of the Exhibition on Monday — 
Ingres and Horace Vernet presented to her — Frenchmen's ignorance 
of English art in those days— English and French art critics— The 
Queen takes a carriage drive' through Paris— Not a single cry of" Vive 
I'Angleterre ! " a great many of " Vive la Keine "—England making a 
cats-paw of France— Keception at the Elysee-Bourbon— " Les Demoi- 
. selles de Saint-Cyr" at St. Cloud— Alexandre Dumas would have 



CONTENTS. xiii 

PAGE 

liked to see the Queen — Visit to Versailles — State-performances at the 
Opera — Ball at the Hotel de Ville — The Queen's dancing; — Canrobert 
on '* the Queen's dancing and her soldiers' lighting " — Another visit to 
the Exhibition — Beranger misses seeing the Queen — •'• I am not going 
to see the Queen, but the woman" — A review in the Champ-de-Mars 
— A visit to Napoleon's tomb — Jerome's absence on the plea of illness 
— Marshal Vaillant's reply to the Emperor when the latter invites him 
to take Jerome's place — His comments on the receptions given by the 
Emperor to foreign sovereigns — Fetes at Versailles — Homeward . . 336 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Marshal Vaillant — The beginning of our acquaintance — His stories of the 
swashbucklers of the First Fmpire, and the beaux of the Eestauration 
— Rabelaisian, but clever— Marshal Vaillant neither a swashbuckler 
nor a beau; hated both — Never cherished the slightest illusions about 
the efficiency of the French army — Acknowledged himself unable to 
effect the desired and necessary reforms — To do that, a minister of war 
must become a tixture — Why he stayed — Careful of the public moneys, 
and of the Emperor's also — Napoleon lll.'s lavislmess — An instance of 
it — Vaillant never dazzled by the grandeur of court entertainments — 
Not dazzled by anything — His hatred of wind-bags — Prince de Canino 
— Matutinal interviews-^Priuce de Canino sends his seconds — Vaillant 
declines the meeting, and gives his I'eason — Vaillant abrupt at the best 
of times— A freezing reception — A comic interview — Attempts to shirk 
military duty — Tricks — Mistakes — A story in point — More tricks — 
Sham ailments : how the marshal dealt with them^When the marshal 
was not in an amiable mood — Another interview — Vaillant's tactics — 

"D d annoying to be wrong" — The marshal fond of science — A 

very interesting scientilic phenomenon himself — Science under the 
later Bourbons — Suspicion of the soldiers of the Empire — The priest- 
hood and the police— The most godless republic preferable to a con- 
tinuance of their regime— The marshal's dog, Brusca — Her dislike to 
civilians — Brusca's chastity — Vaillant's objection to insufficiently pre- 
paid letters — His habit of missing the train, notwithstanding his pre- 
cautions — His objection to fuss and public lionours 351 

CHAPTER XIX. 

The Franco-German War — Friday, July 15. 1870, 6 p. m. — My friends " con- 
fident of France being able to chastise the insolence of the King of 
Prussia" — I do not share their confidence; but do not expect a crush- 
ing defeat — Napoleon III.'s presence ag^rravated the disasters ; his 
absence would not have averted them — He himself had no illusions 
about the efficiency of the army, did not suspect the rottenness of it — 
His previous endeavours at reorganization — The real drift of his pro- 
posed ine^uiries — His plan meant also compulsory service for every one 
— Why the legislatui'c opposed it — The makeshift proposed by it — 
Napoleon weary, body and soul — His physical condition — A great con- 
sultation and the upsliot of it — Dr. Kicord and what he told me — I am 
determined to see and hear, though not to speak — I sally forth — The 
streets on the evening of Fridav, the 15th of July — The illuminations 
— Patriotism or Chauvinism — The announcement of a bookseller — 
What Moltke thought of it — The opinion of a dramatist on the war — 
The people ; no horse-play — No work done on Saturday and Sunday 
— Cabmen — "A man does not pay for his own funeral, monsieur" — 
The northern station on Sunday-^The departing Germans — The Em- 



xiv AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

PAGE 

peror's particular instructions with regard to them — x\lfrecl de ^lusset^s 
" Khin Allemand" — Prevost-Paradol and the news of his suicide— The 
probable cause of it — A chat with a superior officer — The Emperors 
Sunday receptions at the Tuileries — Promotions in the army, upon 
what basis — Good and bad officers — The officers' mess does not exist — 
Another general officer gives his opinion — Marshal Niel and Leboeuf 
— The plan of campaign suddenly altered — The reason — The Emperor 
leaves St. Cloud — His'conlidence'shaken before then — Some telegrams 
from the commanders of divisions — Thiers is appealed to. to stem the 
tide of retrenchment; afterwards to take tke portfolio of war — The 
Emperor's opinion persistently disregarded at the Tuileries — Trochu— 
The dancing colonels at the Tuileries S67 

CHAPTER XX. 

The war — Reaction before the Emperor's departure — The moral effects of 
the publication of the draft treaty — " Bismarck ha^ done the Em- 
peror" — The Parisians did not like the Empress — The latter always 
anxious to assume the regency — A retrospect— Crimean war — The Em- 
press and Queen Victoria — Solferino — The regency of ''Qo — Bismarck's 
millinery bills — Lord Lyons — Bismarck and the Due de Gramont — 
Lord Lyons does not foresee war — The republicans and the war — The 
Empress — Two ministerial councils and their consequences — Mr. Pres- 
cott-Hewett sent for — Joseph Eerrari, the Italian philosopher — The 
Empress — The ferment in Paris—" Too much prologue to ' The Tam- 
ing of the German Shrew ' " — The ilrst engagement — The "• Marseil- 
laise " — An infant performer — The " Marseillaise " at the Comedie- 
Frangaise — The " Marseillaise" by command of the Emperor — A patri- 
otic ballet — The courtesy of the French at Fontenoy — The Cafe de la 
Paix — General Beaufort d'Hautpoul and Moltke— "Newspaper corre- 
spondents — Edmond About tells a story about one of his colleagues — 
News supplied by the Government — What it amounted to — The infor- 
mation it gave to the enemy — Bazaine, " the glorious" one— Palikao — 
The fall of the Empire does not date from Sedan, but from Woerth 
and Speicheren — Those who dealt it the heaviest blow — The Empress, 
the Empress, and no one but the Empress 385 

CHAPTER XXI. 

The 4th of September— A comic, not a tragic revolution— A burlesque 
Harold and a burlesque Boadicea— The news of Sedan only known 
publiclv on the 3rd of September— Grief and consternation, but no rage 
—The latter feeling imported by the bands of Delescluze, Blanqui, 
and Felix Pyat— Blanqui, Pvat, ife Co. versus Favre, Gambetta, & Co. 
—The former want their share of the spoil, and only get it some years 
afterwards— Ramail goes to the Palais-Bourbon— His report— Paris 
spends the ni^ht outdoors— Thiers a second-rate Talleyrand— Ilisjour- 
nev to the different courts of Europe— His interview with Lord Gran- 
ville— The 4th of September— The Imperial eagles disappear— The 
joyousness of the crowd — The Place de la Concorde — The gardens of 
the Tuileries — The crowds in the Rue de Rivoli scarcely pay attention 
to the Tuileries — The soldiers fraternizing with the people, and pro- 
claiming the republic from the barracks' windows — A serious proces- 
sion — Sampierro Gavini gives his opinion — The '' heroic struggles " of an 
Empress, and tlie crownless coronation of " le Roi Petaud " — Ramail at 
the Tuileries — How M. Sardou saved the palace from being burned and 
tacked — The republic proclaimed — Hluminations as after a victory . 404 



CONTENTS. XV 

CHAPTER XXII. 

PAGE 

The sieo-e— The Parisians convinced that the Germans will not inyept 
Paris— Paris becomes a vast drill-ground, nevertheless— The Parisians 
leave oft singing, but listen to itinerant performers, though the latter 
no lono-er sin^ the " Marseillaise "—The theatres closed— The Comedie- 
Francaise anl the Opera— Influx of the Gardes Mobiles— The Parisian 
no longer chaffs the provincial, but does the honours of the city to 
him— The stolid, gaunt Breton and the astute and cynical Normand — 
The gardens of the Tuileries an artillery park— The mitrailleuse still 
commands confidence— The papers try to be comic— Food may fail, 
drink will not— Mv visit to the wine depot at Percy- An official's in- 
formation—Cattle "in the public squares and on the outer Boulevards 

Fear with regard to them— Every man carries a rifle— The woods in 

the suburbs are' set on fire— The statue of Strasburg on the Place de la 
Concorde— M. Prudhomme to his sous— The men who do not spout— 
The French shopkeeper and bourgeois— A story of his greed— He 
reveals the whereabouts of the cable laid on the bed of the Seme- 
Obscure heroes— Would-be Ravaillacs and Balthazar Gerards— In- 
ventors of schemes for the instant annihilation of all the Germans— A 
musical mitrailleuse— An exhibition and lecture at the Alcazar- The 
last train— Trains converted into dwellings for the suburban poor- 
Interior of a railway station— The spy mania— Where the Parisians 
ought to have looked for spies— 1 am arrested as a spy— A chat with 
the otficer in charge— A terrible-looking knife . . ... .414 

CHAPTER XXIIl. 

The siege — The food-supply of Paris — How and what the Parisians eat 
and drink — Bread, meat, and wine — Alcohol isiii — The waste among 
the London poor — The French take a lesson from the alien — The Irish 
at La Villette — A whisper of the horses being doomed — M. Gagne — 
The various attempts to introduce horseflesh — The journals deliver 
their opinions — The supply of horseflesh as it stood in ''70 — The Acad- 
emic des Sciences — Gelatine^Kitchen gardens on the balcony — M. 
Lockroy's experiment— M. Pierre Joigneux and the Englishman — If 
cabbages, why not mushrooms ? — There is still a kitchen garden left — 
Cream cheese from the moon, to be fetched by Gambetta — His departure 
in a balloon — ^Nadar and Napoleon III. — Carrier-pigeons — An aerial 
telegraph — Offers to cross the Prussian lines — The theatres — A per- 
formance at the Cirque National — " Le Roi s'amuse," at the Theatre 
de Montmartre — A dejeuner at Durand's — Weber and Beethoven — 
Long winter nights without fuel or gas— The price of provisions — The 
Parisian's good-humour — His wit — The greed of the shopkeeper — 
Culinary literature — More's '' Utopia" — An ex-lieutenant of the For- 
eign Legion — He gives us a breakfast — He delivers a lecture on food — 
Joseph, ills servant — Milk — The slender resources of the poor — I in- 
terview an employe of the State Pawnshop — Statistics — Hidden pro- 
visions — Bread — Prices of provisions — New Year's Day, and New Year's 
dinners — The bombardment — No more bread — The end of the siege . 429 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Some men of the Commune — Cluseret — His opinion of Rossel— His opinion 
of Bergeret — What Cluseret was fighting for — Thiers and Abraham 
Lincoln— Raoul Eigault on horseback— Theophile Ferr*^— Ferre and 
Gil-Peres, the actor — The comic men of the Commune — Gambon — 



xvi AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

PAGE 

Jourde, one of the most valuable of the lot — His financial abilities — 
His endeavours to save — Jourde at Godillot's — Colonel Maxime Lis- 
bonne — The Editor's recol lection j of him — General Dombrowski and 
General la Cecilia — A soiree at the Tuileries — A gala-performance at 
the Opera Comique — The death-knell of the Commune .... 462 



AN EXGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Tho Quartier-Latin in the late thirties— The dilference between then and novr 
— A caricature on the walls of Paris— I am anxious to be introduced to the 
quarter whence it emanated— I am taken to '' La Childebert,'' and make the 
acquaintance of the original of the caricature— The story of Bouginier and 
his nose— Dantan as a^caricaturist— He abandons that branch of art after 
he has made Madame Malibran burst into tears at the sight of her statuette 
— How BouofinieV came to be immortalized on tlie facade of the Passage du 
Caire— One"of the first co-operative societies in France— An artists' hive — 
The origin of ^'La Childebert"— Its tenants in my time— The proprietress 
—Madame Chanfort, the providence of poor painters— Her portraits sold 
after her death— High jinks at -'La Childebert "— The Childebertians and 
their peacefuUv inclined neiirhbours— Gratuitous baths and compulsory 
douches at "La" Childebert"— The proprietress is called upon to repair the 
roof— The Childebertians bivouac on the Place St. Germain-des-Pres— 
They start a " Society for the Conversion of the Mahometans "—The pub- 
lic subscribe liberally — What becomes of the subscriptions ^— My visits to 
"La Childebert" breed a taste for the other amusements of the Quartier- 
Latin — Bobino and its entertainments — The audience — The manager — His 
stereotyped speech — The reply in chorus — Woe to the bourgeois-intruder 
— Sto^•'e-pipe hats a rarity in' the Quartier-Latin — The dress of the cok 
legians — Their mode of living — Suppers when money was liush, rolls and 
milk when it was not — A fortune-teller in the Eue de Tournon — Her pre- 
diction as to the future of Josephine de Beauharnais — The allowance to 
students in those days — The Odeon deserted — Students' habits — The Chau- 
miere — Eural excursions — Pere Bonvin's. 

LoxG before Baron Haiissmann began his architectural 
transformation, many parts of Paris had undergone changes, 
perceptible only to those who had been brought up among 
the inhabitants, though distinct from them in nationality, 
education, habits, and tastes. Paris became to a certain ex- 
tent, and not altogether voluntarily, cosmopolitan before the 
palatial mansions, the broad avenues, the handsome public 
squares which subsequently excited the admiration of the 
civilized world had been dreamt of, and while its outer as- 
pect was as yet scarcely modified. This was mainly due to 
the establishment of railways, which caused in the end 
large influxes of foreigners and provincials, who as it were 
2 (1) 



2 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

drove the real Parisian from liis haunts. Those visitors 
rarely penetrated in large numbers to the very heart of the 
Quartier-Latin. When they crossed the bridges that span the 
Seine, it was to see the Sorbonne, the Pantheon, the Observ- 
atory, the Odeon, and the Luxembourg ; they rarely stayed 
after nightfall. The Prado, the Theatre Bobino, the stu- 
dents' taverns, escaped their observation when there was 
really something to see ; and now, when the Closerie des 
Lilas has become the Bal Bullier, when the small theatre has 
been demolished, and when the taverns are in no way distin- 
guished from other Parisian taverns — when, in short, com- 
monplace pervades the whole — people flock thither very 
often. But during the whole of the forties, and even later, 
the vive gauclie^ with its Quartier-Latin and adjacent Fan- 
bourg St. Germain, were almost entirely sacred from the 
desecrating stare of the deliberate sightseer ; and, conse- 
quently, the former especially, preserved its individuality, 
not only materially, but mentally and morally — immorally 
would perhaps have been the word that would have risen to 
the lips of the observer who lacked the time and inclination 
to study the life led there deeper than it appeared merely on 
the surface. For though there was a good deal of royster- 
ing and practical joking, and short-lasted liaison^ there was 
little of deliberate vice, of strategic libertinism — if I may be 
allowed to coin the expression. True, every Jack had his 
Jill, but, as a rule, it was Jill who had set the ball rolling. 

The Quartier-Latin not only sheltered sucking lawyers 
and doctors, budding professors and savans and litterateurs, 
but artists whose names have since then become world-re- 
nowned. ,It was with some of these that I was most thrown 
in contact in that quarter, partly from inclination, because 
from my earliest youth I have been fonder of pictures than 
of books, partly because at that time I had already seen so 
many authors of fame, most of whom were the intimate ac- 
quaintances of a connection of mine, that I cared little to 
seek the society of those who had not arrived at that stage. 
I was very young, and, though not devoid of faith in possi- 
bilities, too mentally indolent when judgment in that respect 
involved the sitting down to manuscripts. It was so much 
easier and charming to be able to discover a budding genius 
by a mere glance at a good sketch, even when the latter was 
drawn in charcoal on a not particularly clean " whitewashed " 
wall. 



THE QUARTIER-LATIN IN THE FORTIES. 3 

I Avas scarcely more than a stripling when one morning 
such a sketch appeared on the walls of Paris, and consider- 
ably mystified, while it at the same time amused the inhabit- 
ants of the capital. It was not the work of what we in Eng- 
land would call a " seascape and mackerel artist," for no such 
individual stood by to ask toll of the admirers ; it was not an 
advertisem.ent, for in those days that mode of mural publicity 
was scarcely born, let alone in its infancy, in Paris. AVhat, 
then, was this colossal, monumental nose, the like of which 
I have only seen on the faces of four human beings, one of 
whom was Hyacinth, the famous actor of the Palais-Royal, 
the other three being M. d'Argout, the Governor of the Bank 
of France; M. de Jussieu, the Directoi;^of the Jardin des 
Plantes ; and Lasailly, Balzac's secretary? What was this 
colossal nose, with a ridiculously small head and body at- 
tached to it ? The nasal organ was certainly phenomenal, 
even allowing for the permissible exaggeration of the carica- 
turist, but it could surely not be the only title of its owner to 
this sudden leap into fame ! Was it a performing nose, or 
one endowed with extraordinary powers of smell ? I puzzled 
over the question for several days, until one morning I hap- 
pened to run against my old tutor, looking at the picture 
and laughing till the tears ran down his wrinkled cheeks. 
It was a positive pleasure to see him. " C'est bien lui, c'est 
bien lui," he exclaimed ; " c'est absolument son portrait 
crache ! " " Do you know the original?" I asked. "Mais, 
sans doute, je le connais, c'est un ami de mon fils, du reste, 
toute le monde connait Bouginier." " But I do not know 
him," I protested, feeling very much ashamed of my igno- 
rance. " Ah, you ! that's quite a dilferent thing ; you do not 
live in the Quartier-Latin, but everybody there knows him." 
From that moment I knew no rest until I had made the ac- 
quaintance of Bouginier, which was not very difficult ; and 
through him I became a frequent visitor to " La Childebert," 
which deserves a detailed description, because, though it was 
a familiar haunt to many Parisians of my time with a taste 
for Bohemian society, I doubt whether many Englishmen, 
save (the late) Mr. Blanchard Jerrold and one of the May- 
hews, ever set foot there, and even they could not have seen 
it in its prime. 

But before I deal with " La Childebert," I must say a few 
words about Bouginier, who, contrary to my expectations, 
owed his fame solely to his proboscis. He utterly disap- 



4 AN ENGLISHjVIAN IN PARIS. 

peared from the artistic horizon in a few years, but his feat- 
ures still live in the memory of those who knew him tlirough 
a statuette in terra cotta modelled by Dan tan the younger. 
During the reign of Louis- Philippe, Dantan took to that 
branch of art as a relaxation from his more serious work ; he 
finally abandoned it after he had made Madame Malibran 
burst into tears, instead of making her laugh, as he intended, 
at her own caricature. Those curious in such matters may 
see Bouginier's presentment in a medallion on the frontis- 
piece of the Passage dii Caire, amidst the Egyj^tian divinities 
and sphinxes. As a matter of course, the spectator asks 
himself why this modern countenance should find itself in 
such incongruous company, and he comes almost naturally 
to the conclusion that Bouginier was the owner, or perhaps 
the architect, of this arcade, almost exclusively tenanted — 
until very recently — by lithographers, printers, etc. The 
conclusion, however, would be an erroneous one. B.iuginier,- 
as far as is known, never had any property in Paris or else- 
where ; least of all was he vain enough to perpetuate his own 
features in that manner, even if he had had an opportunity, 
but he had not; seeing that he was not an architect, but 
simply a painter, of no great talents certainly, but, Avithal, 
modest and sensible, and as such opposed to, or at any rate 
not sharing, the crazes of medisevalism, romanticism, and 
other isms in which the young painters of that day indulged, 
and which they thought fit to emphasize in 20ublic and among 
one another by eccentricities of costume and language, sup- 
posed to be in harmony with the periods they had adopted 
for illustration. This absence of enthusiasm one wav or the 
other aroused the ire of his fellow-lodgers at the ""'Cliilde- 
bert," and one of them, whose pencil was more deft at that 
kind of work than those of the others, executed their ven- 
geance, and drew Bouginier's picture on the " fag end " of a 
dead wall in the vicinity of the Church of St. Germain-des- 
Pres. The success was instantaneous and positively over- 
whelming, though truth compels one to state that this was 
the only fiash of genius that illumined that young fellow's 
career. His name Avas Fourreau, and one looks in vain for 
his name in the biographical dictionaries or encyclopedias of 
artists. Fate has even been more cruel to him than to his 
model 

^ For the moment, however, the success, as I have already 
said, was overwhelming. In less than a fortni2:ht there was 



THE CHILDEBERTIANS ON THETIl TRAVELS. 5 

not a single wall in Paris and its ontskirts witliout a Bonginier 
on its surface. Though Paris was considerably less in area 
than it is now, it wanted a Herculean effort to accomplish 
this. No man, had he been endowed with as many arms as 
Briareus, would have sufficed for it. Nor would it have done 
to trust to more or less skilful copyists — they might have 
failed to catch the likeness, which was really an admirable 
one ; so the following device was hit upon. Fourreau himself 
cut a number of stencil plates in brown paper, and, provided 
with them, an army of Childebertians started every night in 
various directions, Fourrean and a few undoubtedly clever 
youths heading the detachments, and filling in the blanks' by 
hand. 

Meanwhile summer had come, and with it the longing 
among the young Tintos to breathe the purer air of the 
country, to sniff the salt breezes of the ocean. As a matter 
of course, they were not all ready to start at the same time, 
but being determined to follow the same route, to assemble 
at a common goal, the contingent that was to leave a fort- 
night later than the first arranged to join the others wherever 
they might be. 

" But how ? " was the question of those w^ho were left 
behind. " Very simply indeed," was the answer ; " we'll go by 
the Barriere d'ltalie. You'll have but to look at the walls 
along the road, and you'll find your waybill." 

So said, so done. A fortnight after, the second division 
left head-quarters and made straight for the Barriere d'ltalie. 
But when outside the gates they stood undecided. For one 
moment only. The next they caught sight of a magnificent 
Bouginier on a wall next to the excise office — of a Bouginier 
whose outstretched index pointed to the Fontaineblea.u road. 
After that, all went well. As far as Marseilles their Bougi- 
nier no more failed them than the clouds of smoke and fire 
failed the Israelites in the wilderness. At the seaport town 
they lost the track for a little while, rather through their want 
of faith in the ingenuity of their ^predecessors than through 
the latter's lack of such ingenuity. They had the Mediter- 
ranean in front of them, and even if they found a Bouginier 
depicted somewhere on the shore, his outstretched index 
could only point to the restless waves ; he could do nothing 
more definite. Considerably depressed, they were going 
down the Cannebiere, when they caught sight of the features of 
their guiding star on a panel between the windows of a ship- 



6 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

ping office. His outstretched index did not point this time ; it 
was placed over a word, and that word spelt " Malta." They 
took ship as quickly as possible for the ancient habitation of 
the Knights-Templars. On the walls of the Customs in the 
island was Bouginier, with a scroll issuing from his nostrils, 
on which was inscribed the word "Alexandria." A similar 
indication met their gaze at the Pyramids, and at last the 
second contingent managed to come up with the first amidst 
the ruins of Thebes at the very moment when the word 
" Suez " was being traced as issuing from Bouginier's mouth. 

Among the company was a young fellow of the name of 
Berthier, who became subsequently an architect of some note. 
The Passage du Caire, as I have already observed, was in 
those days the head-quarters of the lithographic-printing busi- 
ness in general, but there was one branch which flourished 
more than the rest, namely, that of Icttres cle faire imrt^ 
menus of restaurants and visiting - cards. The two first- 
named documents were, in common with most printed matter 
intended for circulation, subject to a stamp duty, but in the 
early days of the Second Empire Louis-Napoleon had it taken 
off. To mark their sense of the benefit conferred, the litho- 
graphic firms t determined to have the arcade, which stood 
in sad need of repair, restored, and Berthier was selected for 
the task. The passage was originally built to commemorate 
Bonaparte's victories in Egypt, and when Berthier received 
the commission, he could think of no more fitting facade 
than the reproduction of a house at Karnac. He fondly re- 
membered his youthful excursion to the laud of Pharaohs, 
and at the same time the image of Bouginier uprose before 
him. That is why the presentment of the latter may be seen 
up to this day on the frieze of a building in the frowsiest 
part of Paris. 

If I have dwelt somewhat longer on Bouginier than the 
importance of the subject warranted, it was mainly to convey 
an idea of the spirit of mischief, of the love of practical jok- 
ing, that animated most of the inmates of " La Childebert." 



* The " lettre do faire part " is an intimation of a birth, marriage, or death 
sent to the friends, and even mere acquaintances, of a family. — Editor. 

+ The lithoerraplici-s Avere almost the first in France to iform a co-operative 
society, but not in the sense of the Kochdale pioneers, which dates ft-om about 
the same period. The Lacrampe Association was for supplying lithographic 
work. It began in the Passage du Caire with ten members, and in a short time 
numbered two hundred workmen. — Editor, 



THE POOR PAINTERS' PROVIDENCE. 7 

As a rule their devilries were innocent enough. The pic- 
torial persecution of Bouginier is about the gravest thing 
that could be laid to their charge, and the victim, like the 
sensible fellow he was, rather enjoyed it than otherwise. 
Woe, however, to the starched bourgeois who had been de- 
coyed into their lair, or even to the remonstrating comrade 
with a serious turn of mind, who wished to pursue his studies 
in peace ! His life was made a burden to him, for the very 
building lent itself to all sorts of nocturnal surprises and of 
guerilla sorties. Elsewhere, when a man's door was shut, he 
might reasonably count upon a certain amount of privacy ; 
the utmost his neighbours could do was to make a noise over- 
head or by his side. At the " Childebert " such privacy was 
out of the question. There was not a door that held on its 
hinges, not a window that could be opened or shut at will, 
not a ceiling that did not threaten constantly to crush you 
beneath its weight, not a floor that was not in danger of giv- 
ing way beneath you and landing you in the room below, not 
a staircase that did not shake under your very steps, however 
light they might be ; in short, the place was a wonderful 
ilkistrationof " how the rotten may hold together," even if it 
be not gently handled. 

The origin of the structure, as it stood then, was wrapt in 
mystery. It was five or six stories high, and must have at- 
tained that altitude before the first Revolution, because the 
owner, a Madame Legend re, who bought it for assignats 
amounting in real value to about one pound sterling, when 
the clergy's property was sold by the nation, was known 
never to have spent a penny upon it either at the time of the 
purchase or subsequently, until she was forced by a tenant 
more ingenious or more desperate than the rest. That it 
could not have been part of the abbey and adjacent monas- 
tery built by Childebert I., who was buried there in 558, was 
very certaim It is equally improbable that the Cardinal de 
Bissy, who opened a street upon the site of the erstwhile 
abbey in the year of Louis XIV. 's death, would have erected 
so high a pile for the mere accommodation of the pensioners 
of the former monastery, at a time when high piles were the 
exception. Besides, the Nos. 1 and 3, known to have been 
occupied by those pensioners, all of whose rooms communi- 
cated with one another, were not more than two stories high. 
In short, the original intention of the builder of the house 
No. 9, yclept " La Childebert," has never been explained. 



8 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

The only tenant in the Eue Ohiklebert who might have 
thrown a light on the subject had died before the caravansary 
attained its fame. He was more than a hundred years old, 
and had married five times. Ilis fifth wife was only eighteen 
when she became Madame Ohanfort, and survived him for 
many, many years. She was a very worthy soul, a downright 
providence to the generally impecunious painters, whom she 
used to feed at prices which even then were ridiculously low. 
Three eggs, albeit fried in grease instead of butter, for the 
sum of three-half-pence, and a dinner, including wine, for 
sixj)ence, could not have left much profit ; but Madame 
Chanfort always declared that she had enough to live upon, 
and that she su2:)plied the art-students with food at cost price 
because she would not be without their company. At her 
death, in '57, two years before the "Childebert" and the 
street of the same name disappeared, there w^as a sale of her 
chattels, and over a hundred portraits and sketches of her, 
" in her habit as she lived," came under the hammer. To 
show that the various occupants of " La Childebert " could 
do more than make a noise and play j^ractical jokes, I may 
state that not a single one of these productions fetched less 
than fifty francs — mere crayon studies ; while there were sev- 
eral that sold for two hundred and three hundred francs, and 
two studies in oil brought respectively eight hundred francs 
and twelve hundred francs. Nearly every one of the young 
men who had signed these portraits had made a name for him- 
self. The latter two were signed respectively Paul Delaroche 
and Tony Johannot. 

Nevertheless, to those whose love of peace and quietude 
was stronger than their artistic instincts and watchful admi- 
ration of budding genius, the neighbourhood of " La Childe- 
bert " was a sore and grievous trial. At times the street itself, 
not a very long or wide one, was like Pandemonium let loose ; 
it was when there was an " At Home " at " La Childebert," 
and such functions were frequent, especially at the beginning 
of the months. These gatherings, as a rule, partook of the 
nature of fancy dress conversaziones ; for dancing, owing to 
the shakiness of the building, had become out of the ques- 
tion, even with such dare-devils as the tenants. What the 
latter prided themselves upon most was their strict adherence 
to the local colour of the periods they preferred to resuscitate. 
Unfortunately for the tranquillity of the neighbourhood, they 
pretended to carry out this revival in its smallest details, not 



THE CHILDEBERTIANS AT HOME. 9 

only in their artistic productions, but in their daily lives. 
The actor who blacked himself all over to play Othello was 
as nothing to them in his attempted realism, because we may 
suppose that he got rid of his paint before returning to the 
everyday world. Not so the inmates of " La Childebert." 
They were minstrels, or corsairs, or j^roud and valiant knights 
from the moment they got up till the moment they Avent to 
bed, and many of them even scorned to stretch their weary 
limbs on so effeminate a contrivance as a modern mattress, 
but endeavoured to keep up the illusion by lying on a rush- 
bestrewn floor. 

I am not sufficiently learned to trace these various and 
succeeding disguises to their literary and theatrical causes, 
for it was generally a new book or a new play that set the 
ball rolling in a certain direction ; nor can 1 vouch for the 
chronological accuracy and completeness of my record in 
that respect, but I remember some phases of that ever-shift- 
ing masquerade. When I was a very little boy, I was struck 
more than once with the sight of young men parading the 
streets in doublets, trunk hose, their flowing locks adorned 
with velvet caps and birds' wings, their loins girded with 
short swords. And yet it was not carnival time. No one 
seemed to take particular notice of them ; the Parisians by 
that time had probably got used to their vagaries. Those 
competent in such matters have since told me that the " get- 
up" was inspired by " La Gaule Poetique " of M. de Mar- 
changy, the novels of M. d'Arlincourt, and the kindred stilt- 
ed literature that characterized the beginning of the Eestora- 
tion. Both these gentlemen, from their very hatred of the 
Greeks and Romans of the first Empire, created heroes of 
fiction still more ridiculous than the latter, just as Metter- 
nich, through his weariness of the word " fraternity," said 
that if he had a brother he would call him " cousin." A few 
years later, the first translation of Byron's works produced 
its effect; and then came Defauconpret, with his very credit- 
able French versions of Walter Scott. The influence of Paul 
Delaroche and his co-champions of the cause of romanticism, 
the revolution of July, the dramas of Alexandre Dumas and 
Victor Hugo, all added their quota to the prevailing confu- 
sion in the matter of style and period, and early in the forties 
there were at the " Childebert " several camps, fraternizing 
in everything save in their dress and speech, which were the 
visible and audible manifestation of their individual predi- 



10 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

lection for certain periods of history. For instance, it was 
no uncommon thing to hear the son of a concierge, whose 
real or fancied vocation had made him embrace the artistic 
profession, swear by " the faith of his ancestors," while the 
impoverished scion of a noble house replied by calling him 
" a bloated reminiscence of a feudal and superstitious age." 

At the conversaziones which I mentioned just now, the 
guests of the inmates of " La Childebert " not only managed 
to out-Herod Herod in diction and attire, but, to heighten 
illusion still further, adopted as far as possible the mode of 
conveyance supposed to have been employed by their proto- 
tj^pes.*^ The classicists, and those still addicted to the illus- 
tration of Greek and Roman mythology, though nominally 
in the minority at the " Childebert " itself, were, as a rule, 
most successful in those attempts. The ass that had borne 
Silenus, the steeds that had drawn the chariot of the tri- 
umphant Roman warrior, the she-goat that was supposed to 
have suckled Jupiter, were as familiar to the inhabitants of 
the Rue Childebert as the cats and mongrels of their own 
households. The obstructions caused by the former no longer 
aroused their ire ; but Avhen, one evening, Romulus and Re- 
mus made their appearance, accompanied by the legendary 
she-wolf, they went mad with terror. The joanic was at its 
height when, with an utter disregard of mythological tradi- 
tion, Hercules Avalked up the street, leading the Ncmaean 
lion. Then the aid of the police was invoked ; but neither 
the police nor the national guards, who came after them, 
dared to tackle the animals, though they - ight have done 
so safely, because the supposed wolf was a great dane, and 
the lion a mastiff, but so marvellously padded and painted 
as to deceive any but the most practised eye. The culprits, 
however, did not reveal the secret untirthey were at the 
commissary of police's office, enjoving the magnificent treat 
of setting the whole of the neighbourhood in an uproar on 
their journey thither, and of frightening that official on their 
arrival. 

In fact, long before I knew them, the inmates of the 
" Childebert " had become a positive scourge to the neigh- 
bourhood, while the structure itself threatened ruin to every- 
thing around it. Madame Legendre absolutely refused to 
do any repairs. She did not deny that she had' bou.crht the 
place cheap, but she pointed out at the same time that the 
rents she charged were more than modest, and that eight 



THE PKOPRIETRESS OF "LA CHILDEBERT."- H 

times out of ten she did not get them. In the beginning of 
her ownership she had emplo3'ed a male concierge, to pre- 
vent, as it were, the wholesale flitting which w^as sure to fol- 
low a more strenuous application for arrears upon which she 
ventured now and then in those days. That was towards 
the end of the Empire, when the disciples of David had been 
reduced to a minority in the place by those of Lethiere, who 
sounded the first note of revolt against the unconditional 
classicism of the illustrious member of the Convention. If 
all the disciples of the Creole painter had not his genius, 
most of them had his courage and readiness to draw the 
sword on the smallest provocation,* and the various Cerberi 
employed by Madame Legend re to enforce her claims had to 
fly one after another. The rumour of the danger of the situ- 
ation had spread, and at last Madame Legendre could find 
no man to fill it, exce^^t on monetary conditions with which 
she would not — perhaps could not — comply. From that day 
forth she employed a woman, who was safe, because she had 
been told to let " lawless impecuniosity " take its course, and 
it was recorded that pecuniarily the proprietress was the bet- 
ter off for this change of tactics. 

I am willing to repeat that record, which, if true, did 
credit to the head of the landlady and the hearts of her ten- 
ants, but am compelled to supplement it by a different ver- 
sion. When I saw the " Childebert " in '37 or '38, no man in 
his senses would have paid rent for any one room in it on 
the two top stories ; he might as well have lived in the streets. 
It was an absolute case of the bottomless sedan chair in 
which two of his fellow- porters put Pat ; " but for the hon- 
our of the thing, he might have walked." Consequently 
the tenants there were rarely harassed for their rent ; if they 
paid it at all, it Avas so much unexpected gain. It happened, 
however, that now and then by mistake a youngster was put 
there who had scruples about discharging his liabilities in 
that respect ; and one of these was Emile Lapierre, who sub- 
sequently became a landscape-painter of note. One night, 
after he had taken up his quarters there, the floodgates of 
heaven opened over Paris. Lapierre woke up amidst a del- 

■* Guillaume Lethiero, whose real name was Guillon, was a native of Guade- 
loupe. He fought and seriously Avounded several officers because the latter had 
objected to "a mere dauber wearinor moustaches." He was oblisced to leave 
Paris, but thanks to the f)rotection of Lucien Bonaparte, was appointed Direct- 
or of the French Academic at Eome. — Editor. 



12 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

uge. I need not say that there were no bells at the " Chil- 
debert ; " nevertheless there was no fear of dying unattended, 
provided one could shout, for there was always a party turn- 
ing night into day, or hailing the smiling morn before turn- 
ing in. Lapierre's shouts found a ready echo, and in a few 
moments the old concierge was on the spot. 

" Go and fetch a boat — go and fetch a boat ! " yelled La- 
pierre. " I am drowning ! " yelled Lapierre. 

" There are none in the quarter," replied the old woman 
innocently, thinking he was in earnest. 

" Then go and fetch Madame Legendre, to show her the 
pond she is letting me instead of the room for which I joay 
her." 

" Madame would not come, not even for you, monsieur, 
who are the only one punctual with your rent ; besides, if she 
did come, she would have no repairs done." 

" Oh, she'll have no repairs done ! We'll soon find out. 
I think I'll make her," screamed Lapierre ; and he kept his 
word. 

It was the only instance of Madame Legendre having had 
to capitulate, and I have alluded to it before ; it remains for 
me to tell how it was done. 

Lapierre, contrary to the precept, allowed the sun to go 
down upon his wrath, in the hope perhaps of inducing Ma- 
dame Legendre to change her oft- announced decision of doing 
no repairs; but he rose betimes next morning, and when 
there was no sign of workmen, he proceeded to carry out his 
plan. The floors of the " Childebert " were made of brick, 
and he simi:)ly removed three or four squares from his, after 
which he went downstairs and recruited half a dozen Avater- 
carriers, and bade them empty their full pails into the open- 
ing he had made. I shall probably have some remarks to 
make elsewhere about the water-supply of Paris; at present 
it is sufficient to say that in those days there was not a single 
house in the capital which was not dependent upon those 
Auvers^nats who carried the commodity round in barrels on 
carts drawn by hand or horse. These gentlemen, though as- 
tonished at the strange task required of them, consented. In 
less than ten minutes there was a string of water-carts sta- 
tioned in the Eue Childebert, and in a few minutes more the 
lower stories were simply flooded. Aime Millet, the sculptor, 
whose room was situated immediately beneath that of La- 
pierre, was the first victim. It was he who gave the alarm, 



THE PROPRIETRESS MAKES A CONCESSION. 13 

but, as a matter of course, in tlie twinkling of an eye there 
were one or two heads at every window, and though very 
early, there was a stampede of very primitively clad models (?) 
into^ the street, shouting and yelling out at the top of their 
voices. Outside no one seemed to know exactly what had 
occurred ; the prevailing impression was that the place was 
on fire. Then Madame Legendre was sent for in hot haste. 
By that time the truth had become known in the house. The 
alarm had subsided, but not the noise. AVhen the report of 
Madame Legendre's coming got wind, a deputation went to 
the entrance of the street to welcome her. It was provided 
Avith all sorts of instruments except musical ones, and the old 
dame was conducted in state to Millet's room. The cause of 
the mischief was soon ascertained, for the water-carriers were 
still at work. The police had refused to interfere ; in reality, 
they would not have been sorry to see the building come 
down Avith a crash, for it Avas as great a source of annoyance 
to them as to the peaceful burghers they Avere supposed to 
protect. A move AA^as made to the room above, where Lapierre 
— Avithout a stitch of clothing — stood directing the opera- 
tions. 

" What are you doing. Monsieur Lapierre ? " screeched 
Madame Legendre. 

" I am taking a bath, madame ; it is A'ery warm. You 
gaA^e me one against my Avill the night before last ; and lest 
I should be accused of selfishness, I am letting my neighbours 
partake of the pleasure." 

That is how Madame Legendre was compelled to repair 
the roof of " La Childebert." 

Such Avas the company amidst which I AA^as introduced by 
the son of my old tutor. Many years have passed since then, 
during Avhich I haA^e been thrown into the society of the great 
and powerful ones of this Avorld, rather through the force of 
circumstances than owing to my own merits, but I have looked 
in vain for the honest friendships, the disinterested actions, 
the genuine enthusiasm for their art, underlying their devilry, 
of Avhich these young men were capable. The bourgeois vices, 
in the guise of civic and domestic virtues, entered the souls of 
Frenchmen early in the reign of Louis-Philippe, and haA^e 
been gnaAving since, with eA'er-increasing force, like a cancer, 
at everything that Avas noble and Avorthy of admiration in a 
nation. But those vices never found their Avay to the hearts 
of the inmates of " La Childebert " Avhile they Avere there, 



14 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS; 

and rarely in after-life. Many attained world-wide reputa- 
tions ; few gathered riches, even when they were as frugal as 
the best among them — Eugene Delacroix. 

To have known these young men was absolutely a liberal 
education. To the Podsnap and Philistine of no matter what 
nationality, it seems a sad thing to have no thought for to- 
morrow. And these youngsters had not even a thought for 
the day. Their thoughts were for the future, when the world 
mayhap would riug with their names ; but their physical or 
mental hearing never strained for the ring of money. They 
were improvident creatures, to be sure ; but how much more 
lovable than the young painters of the present period, whose 
ideal is a big balance at their bankers ; wdio would rather 
have their names inscribed on the registers of the public debt 
than in the golden book of art ; whose dreamt-of Eden is a 
bijou villa in the Pare Monceaux or in the Avenue Yilliers ; 
whose providence is the riclmrd^ the parvenu, the wealthy 
upstart, whose features they perpetuate, regardless of the per- 
petuation of their own budding fame ! 

When I began to jot down these notes, I made up my mind 
to eschew comparisons and moralizing ; I find I have uncon- 
sciously done both, but will endeavour not to offend again. 
Still, I cannot help observing how the mere "moneyed no- 
body " rushes nowadays to the eminent painter to have his 
lineaments reproduced, wdien a guinea photograph would 
serve his purpose just as well for " family use ; " for I take it 
that no one, besides his relations and friends, cares or will 
care to gaze upon his features. And yet our annual picture 
exhibitions are crowded with the portraits of these nonentities. 
They advertise themselves through the painters that transfer 
them to canvas, and the latter are content to pocket heavy 
fees, like the advertising agents they are. I am certain that 
neither Holbein, Rubens, Van Dyck, Hals, nor Rembrandt 
w^ould have lent themselves to such transactions. When they, 
or a Reynolds, a Lawrence, a Gainsborough, conferred the 
honour of their brush upon some one, it was because he or 
she was already distinguished from his or her fellow-creat- 
ures by beauty, social position, talents, genius, or birth ; not 
because he or she Avanted to be, or, in default of such distinc- 
tion, wanted to attract the public notice at all costs. That, 
I fancy, was the way in which painters of other days looked 
upon the thing. I know it was the way in which the young 
fellows at the " Childebert" did: and woe to their comrade 



ART PATRONS AT "LA CHILDEBERT." 15 

wlio ventured to apply in art the principle of international 
maritime law, that " le pavilion couvre la marchandise " (the 
flag covers the cargo) ! He was scouted and jeered at, and, 
moreover, rarely allowed to reap the pecuniary benefit of his 
artistic abasement. Hence the "patron for a portrait" sel- 
dom found his way to " La Childebert." AVhen he did, the 
whole of the place conspired to make his life and that of his 
would-be protege a misery. 

To enumerate all the devices resorted to to make the sit- 
tings abortive, to "distort the features that had donned the 
bland smile of placid contentment " with the paralyzing fear 
of some impending catastrophe, would be impossible ; the 
mention of a few must suffice. That most frequently em- 
ployed, and comparatively easy of execution, was the setting 
alight of damp straAv; the dense smoke penetrated every 
nook and cranny of the crazy building, and the sitter, mad 
with fright, ruslied aAvay. The chances were a hundred to 
one against his ever returning. Another was the intrusion 
of a male model offering his services as a Saint-Jerome, or a 
female one offering hers as Godiva ; for, curious to relate, the 
devotion of the wife of Leofric of Murcia was a favourite 
subject with the Childebertians. As a matter of course, the 
applicants were in the costume, or rather lack of costume, 
appropriate to the character. The strait-laced bourgeois or 
bourgeoise was shocked, and did not repeat the visit. The 
cry that there was a mad dog in the house was a common one 
on those occasions ; and at last the would-be portrait-painters 
had to give in, and a big placard appeared on the frontis- 
piece : " Le commerce des portraits a ete cede aux directeur 
et membres de I'Ecole des Beaux- Arts." 

The most curious thing in connection with the " Childe- 
bert " was that, though the place was inexpressibly ill kept, 
it escaped the most terrible visitations of the cholera. I pre- 
fer not to enter into details of the absolute disregard of all 
sanitary conditions, but in warm weather the building became 
positively uninhabitable. Long before the unsavoury spec- 
tacle of " learned fleas " became a feature of the suburban 
fairs, Emile Signol, who is best known as a painter of relig- 
ious subjects, had trained a company of performers of a dif- 
ferent kind of nocturnal pests. He averred in his opening 
lecture that their ingenuity was too great to remain unknown, 
and cited anecdotes fully proving his words. Certain is it 
that they were the only enemies before which the combined 



IQ AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

forces of the Childebertians proved powerless. But even 
under such trying circumstances the latter never lost their 
buoyant spirits, and their retreats e7i masse were effected in 
a manner the reports of which set the whole of Paris in a 
roar. One Sunday morning, the faithful worshipi^ers, going 
to matins at the Church of St. Germain-des-Pres, found the 
square occupied by a troop of Bedouins, wrapt in their bur- 
nouses, and sleeping the sleep of the just. Some had squatted 
in corners, calmly smoking their chibouks. This was in the 
days of the Algerian campaign, and the rumour spread like 
wildfire that a party of Arab prisoners of war were bivouacked 
round the church, where a special service would be given in 
the afternoon as the first step to their conversion to Chris- 
tianity. It being Sunday, the whole of Paris rushed to the 
spot. The Bedouins had, however, disappeared, but a col- 
lection was made in their behalf by several demure-looking 
young men. The Parisians gave liberally. That night, and 
two or three nights after, the nocturnal pests' occupation was 
gone, for the " Childebert " was lighted a giorno from base- 
ment to roof, and the Childebertians held high festival. The 
inhabitants of the streets adjacent to the Rue Childebert 
spent as many sleepless nights, though their houses were per- 
fectly wholesome and clean. 

I had the honour to be a frequent guest at those gather- 
ings, but I feel that a detailed description of them is beyond 
my powers. I have already said that the craziness of the 
structure would have rendered extremely dangerous any com- 
bined display of choregraphic art, as practised by the Childe- 
bertians and their friends, male and female, at the neighbour- 
ing Grande-Chaumiere ; it did, however, not prevent a lady 
or gentleman of the company from performing a pas seul now 
and then. This, it must be remembered, was the pre-Rigol- 
bochian period, before Chicard with his c//r^/r?^i^ had been oust- 
ed from his exalted position by the more elegant and graceful 
evolutions of the originator of the modern cancan, the famous 
Brididi ; when the Faubourg du Temple, the Bal du Grand 
Saint-Martin, and " the descent of the Courtille " were pa- 
tronized by the V-^xh jeunesse doree^ and in their halcyon days, 
when the habitues of the establishment of Le Pere Lahire con- 
sidered it their greatest glory to imitate as closely as possible 
the bacchanalian gyrations of the choregraphic autocrat on 
the other side of the Seine. N^o mere description could do 
justice to these gyrations ; only a draughtsman of the high- 



BOBINO AND ITS HABITUES. 17 

est skill could convey an adequate idea of them. But, as a 
rule, the soirees at the " Childebert " were not conspicuous 
for such displa3's; theii programme was a more ambitious one 
from an intellectual point of view, albeit that the programme 
was rarely, if ever, carried out. This failure of the prear- 
ranged proceedings mainly arose from the disinclination or 
inability of the fairer portion of the company to play the pas- 
sive part of listeners and spectators during the recital of an 
unpublished poem of perhaps a thousand lines or so, though 
the reciter was no less a personage than the author. In vain 
did the less frivolous and male part of the audience claim "si- 
lence for the minstrel ; " the interrupters could conceive no 
minstrel without a guitar or some kindred instrument, least 
of all a minstrel who merely spoke his words, and the feast 
of reason and flow of soul came generally to an abrupt end by 
the rising of a damsel more outspoken still than her compan- 
ions, who proposed an adjournment to one of the adjacent 
taverns, or to the not far distant " Grande-Chaumiere," " si 
on continue a nous assommer avec des vers." The threat in- 
variably produced its elfect. The " minstrel " was politely 
requested to " shut up," and Beranger, Desaugiers, or even 
M. Scribe, took the place of the Victor Hugo in embryo until 
the small hours of the morning ; the departure of the guests 
being witnessed by the night-capped inhabitants of the Rue 
Childebert from, their windows, amidst the comforting reflec- 
tions that for another three weeks or so there would be peace 
in the festive halls of that " accursed building." 

My frequent visits to " La Childebert " had developed a 
taste for the Bohemian attractions of the Quartier-Latin. I 
was not twenty, and though I caught frequent glimpses at 
home of some of the eminent men with whom a few years 
later I lived on terms of friendship, I could not aspire to 
their society then. It is doubtful whether I would have done 
so if I could. I preferred the Theatre Bobino to the Opera 
and the Comedie-Fran9aise; the Grande-Chaumiere — or the 
Chaumiere, as it was simply called — to the most brilliantly 
lighted and decorated ballroom ; a stroll with a couple of 
young students in the gardens of the Luxembourg to a car- 
riage-drive in the Bois de Boulogne ; a dinner for three 
francs at Magny's, in the Rue Contrescarpe-Dauphine, or 
even one for twenty-two sous at Yiot's or Blery's, to the most 
sumptuous repast at the Cafe Riche or the Cafe de Paris. I 
preferred the buttered rolls and the bowl of milk at the 
3 



18 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Boulangerie Cretaiiie, in the Rue Danphine, to the best sup- 
pers at the Cafe Anglais, whither 1 had been taken once or 
twice during the Carnival — in short, I was very j'oung and 
very foolish ; since then I have often wished that, at the risk 
of remaining very foolish for evermore, I could have pro- 
longed my youth for another score of years. 

For once in a way I have no need to be ashamed of my want 
of memory. I could not give an account of a single piece I 
saw during those two or three years at Bobino, but I am 
certain that not one of the companions of my youth could. 
It is not because the lapse of time has dimmed the recollec- 
tion of the plots, but because there were no plots, or at any 
rate none that we could understand, and I doubt very much 
whether the actors and actresses were more enlightened in 
that respect than the audience. The pieces were vaudevilles, 
most of them, and it was sufficient for us to join in the 
choruses of the songs, w^tli which they were plentifully in- 
terlarded. As for the dialogue, it might have been sparkling 
with wit and epigram ; it was nearly always drowned by in- 
terpolations from one side of the house or the other. When 
the tumult became too great, the curtain was simply lowered, 
to be almost immediately raised, "discovering" the manager 
— in his dressing-gown. He seemed prouder of that piece of 
attire than the more modern one would be of the most fault- 
less evening dress. He never appealed to us by invoking the 
laws of politeness; he never threatened to have the house 
cleared. He simply pointed out to us that the police would 
inevitably close the place at the request of the inhabitants of 
the Rue de Madame if the noise rose above a certain pitch, 
and disturbed their peaceful evening hours, spent in the 
bosom of their families; which remark was always followed 
by the audience intoning as one man Gretry's " Ou peut-on 
^tre mieux qu'au sein de sa famille?" the orchestra— such 
an orchestra ! — playing the accompaniment, and the mana- 
ger himself beating time. Then he went on. " Yes, messieurs 
et mesdames, we are here en famille also, as much en famille 
as at the Grande-Chaumiere ; and has not M. Lahire ob- 
tained from the Government the permission de faire sa police 
tout seul ! After all, he is providing exercise for your mus- 
cles ; I am providing food for your brain." 

The speech was a stereotyped one — we all knew it by 
heart ; it invariably produced"^ its effect in keeping us com- 
paratively quiet for tlie rest of the evening, unless a hour- 



COLLEGIANS AND THEIR DRESS. 19 

geois happened to come in. Then the uproar became un- 
controllable ; no managerial speech could quell it until the 
intruder had left the theatre. 

By a bourgeois was meant a man who wore broadcloth 
and a top hat, but especially the latter. In fact, that head- 
gear was rarely seen within the inner precincts of the Quartier- 
Latin, even during the daytime, except on the head of a 
professor, or on Thursdays when the collegians — the term 
" lyceen " was not invented — were taken for their weekly 
outing. The semi-military dress of the present time had not 
been thought of then. The collegian wore a top hat, like 
our Eton boys, a white necktie, a kind of black quaker coat 
with a stand-up collar, a very dark blue waistcoat and trousers, 
low shoes, and blue woollen stockings. In the summer, some 
of them, especially those of the College Eollin, had a waist- 
coat and trousers of a lighter texture, and drab instead of 
blue. They were virtually prisoners wdthin the walls of the 
college all the week, for in their Thursday promenades they 
were little more than prisoners taking exercise under the 
supervision of their gaolers. They were allowed to leave on 
alternate Sundays, provided they had parents, relations, or 
friends in Paris, who could come themselves or send their 
servants to fetch them in the morning and take them back at 
night. The rule applied to all, whether they were nine or 
double that number of years ; it prevails even now. I only 
set foot in a French college of those days twice to see a young 
friend of mine, and I thanked my stars that four or five years 
of that existence had been spared to me. The food and the 
table appointments, the bedrooms — they were more like cells 
with their barred windows — Avould have been declined by the 
meanest English servant, certainly by the meanest French 
one. I have never met with a Frenchman who looks back 
with fond remembrance on his school-days. 

The evening was generally wound up with a supper at 
Dagneaux's, Pinson's, or at the rotisseuse — that is, if the 
evening happened to fall within the first ten days of the 
month ; afterwards the entertainment nearly always consisted 
of a meat-pie, bought at one of the charcutiers', and washed 
down with the bottles of wine purchased at the Hotel de 
I'Empereur Joseph II., at the south-eastern angle of the Rue 
de Tournon, where it stands still. The legend ran that the 
brother of Marie Antoinette had stayed there while on a visit 
to Paris, but it is scarcely likely that he would have done so 



20 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

while his sister was within a step of the throne of France ; 
nevertheless the Count von Falkenstein — which was the name 
he adopted when travelling incognito — was somewhat of a 
philosopher. Did not he once pay a visit to Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau without having apprised him of his call? Jean- 
Jacques was copying music as the door opened to let in the 
visitor, and felt flattered enough, we may be sure ; not so 
Bulfon, whom Joseph surprised under similar circumstances, 
and who could never forgive himself for having been caught 
in his dressing-gown — he who never sat down to work except 
in lace ruffles and frill. 

If I have been unwittingly betrayed into a semi-historical 
disquisition, it is because almost every step in that quarter 
gave rise to one, even amongst those light-hearted companions 
of mine, to the great astonishment of the fairer portion of 
the company. They only took an interest in the biography 
of one of the inhabitants of the street, whether past or 
present, and that was in the biography of Mdlle. Lenormand, 
a well-known fortune-teller, who lived at l\o. 5. They had 
heard that the old woman, who had been the mistress of 
Hebert of " Pere Duchesne " fame, had, during the First 
Revolution, predicted to Josephine de Beauharnais that she 
should be empress, as some gipsy at Grenada predicted a 
similar elevation to Eugenie de Montijo many years after- 
wards. Mdlle. Lenormand had been imprisoned after 
Hebert's death, hut the moment Napoleon became first 
consul she was liberated, and frequently sent for to the Lux- 
embourg, which is but a stone's throw from the Rue de 
Tournon. As a matter of course her fame spread, and she 
made a great deal of money during the first empire. Igno- 
rant as they were of history, the sprightly grisettes of our 
days had heard of that ; their great ambition was to get the 
five francs that would open the door of ^Idlle. Lenormand 's 
to them. Mdlle. Lenormand died about the year '43. Jules 
Janin, who lived in the same street, in the house formerly 
inhabited by Theroigne de Mericourt, went to the fortune- 
teller's funeral. The five francs so often claimed by the 
etudiante, so rarely forthcoming from the pockets of her 
admirer, was an important sum in those days among the 
youth of the Quartier-Latin. There were few whose allow- 
ance exceeded two hundred francs per month. A great 
many had to do with less. Those who were in receipt of five 
hundred francs — perhaps not two score among the whole 



RURAL EXCURSIONS. 21 

number — were scarcely considered as belonging to the fra- 
ternity. They were called " ultrapontins," to distinguish 
them from those who from one year's end to another never 
crossed the river, except perhaps to go to one of -the theatres, 
because there was not much to be seen at the Odeon during 
the thirties. With Harel's migration to the Porte St. Martin, 
the glory of the second Theatre-Fran^ais had departed, and 
it was not until '41 that Lireux managed to revive some 
of its ancient fame. By that time I had ceased to go to the 
Quartier- Latin, but Lireux was a familiar figure at the Cafe 
Riche and at the divan of the Rue Le Peletier ; he dined now 
and then at the Cafe de Paris. So we made it a point to 
attend every one of his first nights, notwithstanding the 
warnings in verse and in prose of every wit of Paris, Theo- 
phile Gautier included, who had written : 

" On a fait la dessus millc plaisanteries, 
Je le sais ; il poussait de Fherbe aiix galeries ; 
Trente-six varietes de champignons malsains 
Dans les loges tigraient la mousse des coussins." 

It was impossible to say anything very spiteful of a thea- 
tre which had remained almost empty during a gratuitous 
performance on the king's birthday; consequently while I 
frequented the Quartier-Latin the students gave it a wide 
berth. AVhen they were not disporting themselves at Bobino, 
they were at the Chaumiere, and not in the evening only. 
Notwithstanding the enthusiastic and glowing descriptions 
of it that have appeared in later days, the place was simple 
enough. There was a primitive shooting-gallery, a skittle- 
alley, and so forth, and it was open all day. The students, 
after having attended the lectures and taken a stroll in the 
gardens of the Luxembourg, repaired to the Chaumiere, 
where, in fine weather, they were sure to find their " lady- 
loves" sitting at Avork demurely under the trees. The re- 
freshments were cheap, and one spent one^s time until the 
dinner hour, chatting, singing, or strolling about. The stu- 
dents were very clannish, and invariably remained in their 
own sets at the Chaumiere. There were tables exclusively 
occupied by Bourguignons, Angevins, etc. In fact, life was 
altogether much simpler and more individual than it became 
later on. 

One of our great treats was an excursion to the establish- 
ment of Le Pere Bonvin, where the student of to-day would 



22 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

not condescend to sit down, albeit that the food he gets in 
more showy places is not half as good and three times as dear. 
Le Pere Bonvin was popularly supposed to be in the country, 
though it was not more than a mile from the Barriere Mont- 
parnasse. The " country " was represented by one or two 
large but straggling plots of erstwhile grazing-lands, but at 
that time dotted with chalk-pits, tumble-down wooden 
shanties, etc. Such trees as the tract of " country " could 
boast were on the demesne of Pere Bonvin, but they evi- 
dently felt out of their element, and looked the reverse of 
flourishing. The house of Pere Bonvin was scarcely distin- 
guished in colour and rickettiness from the neighbouring 
constructions, but it Avas built of stone, and had two stories. 
The fare was homely and genuine, the latter quality being no 
small recommendation to an establishment -where the pro- 
lific " bunny " was the usual plat de resistance. For sophis- 
tication, where the rabbit was concerned, was part of the 
suburban traiteur's creed from time immemorial, and the fact 
of the former's head being visible in the dish w^as no guaran- 
tee as to that and the body by its side having formed one 
whole in the flesh. The ubiquitous collector of rags and 
bottles and rabbits' skins was always anxiously inquiring for 
the heads also, and the natural conclusion was that, thanks 
to the latter, stewed grimalkin passed muster as gibelotte. 
At Pere Bonvin's no such suspicion could be entertained for 
one moment ; the visitor was admitted to inspect his dinner 
while alive. Pere Bonvin was essentially an honest man, 
and a character in his way. During the daytime he exer- 
cised the functions of garde-champetre ; at night he became 
the restaurateur. 

In those days both his sons, Frangois and Leon, were 
still at home, but the former had apparently already made 
up his mind not to follow in his sire's footsteps. He was a 
compositor by trade, but the walls of the various rooms 
showed plainly enough that he did not aim at the fame of 
an Aldine or an Elzevir, but at that of a Jan Steen or a 
Gerard Dow. He has fully maintained the promise given 
then. His pictures rank high in the modern French school ; 
there are few of his contemporaries who have so thoroughly 
caught the spirit of the Dutch masters. Leon was a mere 
lad, but a good many among the hahitiies of Pere Bonvin 
predicted a more glorious career for him than for his brother. 
The word "heaven-born musician" has been often misap- 



p£:RE BONVIN'S. 23 

plied ; in Leon's instance it was fully justified. The predic- 
tions, however, were not realized. Whether from lack of con- 
fidence in his own powers, or deterred by the never-ceasing 
remonstrances of his father, Leon, unlike rran9ois, did not 
strike out for himself, but continued to assist in the business, 
only turning to his harmonium in his spare time, or towards 
the end of the evening, when all distinction between guests 
and hosts ceased to exist, and the whole made a very happy 
family. He married early. I lost sight of him altogether, 
until about '64 I heard of his tragic end. He had committed 
suicide. 



24 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 



CHAPTER XL 

My introduction to the celebrities of the day— The Cafe de Paris— The old 
Prince Demidoff— The old man's mania— His sons— The furnitm-e and at- 
tendance at the Cafe de Paris— Its high prices— A mot of Alfred de Musset 
— The cuisine— A rebuke of the proprietor to Balzac — A version by one of 
his predecessors of the cause of VatePs suicide — Some of the Tiabitues — 
Then- intercourse with the attendants— Their courteous behaviour towards 
one another— Le veau a la casserole— What Alfred de Musset, Balzac, and 
Alexandre Dumas thought of it — A silhouette of Alfred de Musset— His 
brother Paul on his election as a member of the Academic — A silhouette 
of Balzac, between sunset and sunrise — X curious action against the pub- 
lishers of an almanack — A full-length portrait of Balzac— His pecuniary 
embarrassments— His visions of wealth and speculations — His constant 
neglect of his duties as a National Guard — His troubles in consequence 
thereof— L'Hotel des Haricots — Some of his felloAv-prisoners — Adam, the 
composer of "Le Postilion de Lonjumeau" — Eugene Sue; his portrait — 
His dandyism — The origin of the Paris Jockey Club— Eugene Sue becomes 
a member— The success of " Les Mysteres de Paris"— The origin of "Le 
Juif-Errant"— Sue makes himself objectionable to the members of the 
Jockey Club — His name struck off the list — His decline and disappearance. 

If these notes are ever piiblislied, the reader will gather 
from the foregoing that, unlike many Englishmen brought 
up in Paris, I was allowed from a very early age to mix with 
all sorts and conditions of men. As I intend to say as little 
as possible about myself, there is no necessity to reveal the 
reason of this early emancipation from all restraint, whieh 
resulted in my being on familiar terms with a great many 
celebrities before I had reached my twenty-first year. I had 
no claim on their goodwill beyond my admiration of their 
talents and the fact of being decently connected. The con- 
stant companion of my youth was hand and glove with some 
of the highest in the land, and, if the truth must be told, 
with a good many of the loAvest ; but the man who was seated 
at the table of Lord Palmerston at the Cafe de Paris at 
8 p.m., could afford de s' encanaUler at 2 a.m. next morning 
without jeopardizing his social status. 

The Cafe de Paris in those days was probably not only 
the best restaurant in Paris, but the best in Europe. Com- 
pared to the "Freres Proven9aux" Vefour and Very, the 



THE CAFE DE PARIS. 25 

Ciife de Paris was young ; it was only opened on July 15, 
1822, in the vast suite of apartments at the corner of the 
Eue Taitbout and Boulevard de Italiens, formerly occupied 
by Prince Demidolf, whose grandson was a prominent figure 
in the society of the Second Empire, and whom I knew per- 
sonally. The grandfather died before I was born, or, at any 
rate, when I was very young ; but his descendant often told 
me about him and his two sons, Paul and Anatole, both of 
whom, in addition to his vast wealth, inherited a good many 
of his eccentricities. The old man, like many Russian grand 
seigneurs, was never so happy as when he could turn his back 
upon his own country. He inhabited Paris and Florence in 
turns. In the latter place he kept in his pay a company of 
French actors, who were lodged in a magnificent mansion 
near to his own, and who enacted comedies, vaudevilles, and 
comic operas. The London playgoer may remember a piece 
in which the celebrated Ravel made a great sensation ; it was 
entitled " Les Folies Dramatiques," and was founded upon 
the mania of the old man. For he was old before his time 
and racked with gout, scarcely able to set his feet to the 
ground. He had to be wheeled in a chair to his entertain- 
ments and theatre, and often fell into a dead faint in the 
middle of the performance or during the dinner. " It made 
no difference to his guests," said his grandson ; " they 
wheeled him out as they had wheeled him in, and the play 
or repast went on as if nothing had happened." In fact, it 
would seem that the prince would have been very angry if 
they had acted otherwise, for his motto was that, next to 
enjoying himself, there was nothing so comfortable as to see 
others do so. Faithful to this principle, he always kept some 
one near, whose mission it was to enjoy himself at his ex- 
pense. He was under no obligation whatsoever, except to 
give an account of his amusements, most frequently in the 
dead of the night, when he got home, because the old prince 
suffered from insomnia ; he would have given the whole of 
his vast possessions for six hours' unbroken slumber. 

I have an idea that the three generations of these Demi- 
doffs Avere as mad as March hares, though I am bound to say, 
at the same time, that the form this madness took hurt no 
one. Personally, I only knew Prince Anatole, the second son 
of the old man, and Paul, the latter's nephew. Paul's father, 
of the same name, died almost immediately after his son's 
birth. He had a mania for travelling, and rarely stayed in 



26 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

the same spot for forty-eight hours. He was always accom- 
panied by a numerous suite and preceded by a couple of 
couriers, Avho, nine times out of ten, had orders to engage 
every room in the hotel for him. Being very rich and as 
lavish as he was wealthy, few hotel proprietors scrupled to 
turn out the whole of their guests at his steward's bidding 
and at a moment's notice. Of course, people refused to put 
up with such cavalier treatment ; but as remonstrance was of 
no avail, they often brought actions for damages, which they 
invariably gained, and were promptly settled by Boniface, 
who merely added them to Prince Paul's bill. The most 
comical part of the business, however, was that the prince as 
often as not changed his mind on arriving at the hotel, and 
without as much as alighting, continued his journey. The 
bill was never disputed. Another of his manias was that his 
wife should wash her hands each time she touched a metal 
object. For a while Princess Demidoff humoured her hus- 
band, but she found this so terribly irksome that she at last 
decided to wear gloves, and continued to do so long after her 
widowhood. 

It must be obvious to the reader that this digression has 
little or no raison cVetre^ even in notes that do not profess to 
tell a succinct story ; but my purpose was to a certain extent 
to vindicate the character of one of the most charming women 
of her time, who had the misfortune to marry what was un- 
doubtedly the most eccentric member of the family. I am 
referring to Princess Anatole Demidoff, nee Bonaparte, the 
daughter of Jerome, and the sister of Plon-Plon. 

To return to the Cafe de Paris and its hahitues. First of 
all, the place itself was unlike any other restaurant of that 
day, even unlike its neighbour and rival, the Cafe Hardi, at 
the corner of the Rue Laffltte, on the site of the present 
Maison d'Or. There was no undue display of wiiite and 
gold ; and '' the epicure was not constantly reminded that, 
when in the act of eating, he was not much superior to the 
rest of humanity," as Lord Palmerston put it when com- 
menting upon the welcome absence of mirrors. The rooms 
might have been transformed at a moment's notice into pri- 
vate apartments for a very fastidious, refined family ; for, in 
addition to the tasteful and costly furniture, it was the only 
establishment of its kind in Paris that was carpeted tlirough- 
out, instead of having merely sanded or even polished floors, 
as was the case even in some of the best Paris restaurants as 



A DISSERTATION OX RESTAURANTS. 27 

late as five and six years ago (I mean in the seventies) — Big- 
non, the Cafe Foy, and the Lion d'Or, in the Rue du Helder, 
excepted. The attendance was in every respect in thorough 
keeping with the grand air of the place, and, albeit that 
neither of the three or four succeeding proprietors made a 
fortune, or anything approaching it, was never relaxed. 

On looking over these notes, I am afraid that the last 
paragraph will be intelligible only to a small section of my 
readers, consequently I venture to explain. Improved com- 
munication has brought to Paris during the third quarter of 
the century a great many Englishmen who, not being very 
familiar either with French or with French customs in their 
better aspect, have come to look upon the stir and bustle of 
the ordinary Paris restaurant, upon the somewhat free-and- 
easy behaviour of the w^aiters, upon their eccentricities of dic- 
tion, upon their often successful attempts at " swelling " the 
total of the dinner-bill as so much matter of course. The 
abbreviated nomenclature the waiter emj^loys in recapitulat- 
ing the bill of fare to the patron is regarded by him as merely 
a skilful handling of the tongue by the native ; the chances 
are ten to one in favour of the patron trying to imitate the 
same in his orders to the attendant, and deriving a certain 
pride from being successful. The stir and bustle is attributed 
to the more lively temperament of our neighbours, the free- 
and-easy behaviour as a wish on the waiter's j^art to smooth 
the linguistically thorny path of the benighted foreigner, the 
attemj^t to multiply items as an irrepressible manifestation of 
French greed. 

Wherever these things occur, nowadays, the patron may 
be certain that he is " in the wrong shop ; " but in the days 
of which I treat, the wrong shop was legion, especially as far 
as the foreigner was concerned ; the Cafe de Paris and the 
Cafe Ilardi were the notable exceptions. Truly, as Alfred de 
Musset said of the former, "you could not open its door for 
less than fifteen francs ; " in other words, the prices charged 
were very high ; but they were the same for the representa- 
tives of the nations that conquered as for those who were van- 
quished at Waterloo. It would be more correct to say that the 
personnel of the Cafe, from the proprietor and manager down- 
ward, were utterly oblivious of such distinctions of nationality. 
Every one who honoured the establishment was considered 
by them a grand seigneur, for whom nothing could be too 
good. I remember one day in '-±5 or '46 — for M. Martin 



28 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Guepet was at the head of affairs then — Balzac announcing 
the advent of a Russian friend, and asking Guepet to put his 
hest foot forward. " Assuredly, monsieur, we will do so," 
was the answer, " because it is simply what we are in the 
habit of doing every day." The retort was sharp, but abso- 
lutely justified by facts. One was never told at the Cafe de 
Paris that this or that dish " could not be recommended," 
that " the fish could not be guaranteed." AVhen the quality 
of the hitter was doubtful, it did not make its appearance on 
the bill of fare. A propos of fish, there was a story current 
in the CJafe de Paris Avhich may or may not have been the 
invention of one of the many clever literary men who fore- 
gathered there. It was to the effect that one of Guepet's 
j3redecessors — Angilbert the younger, I believe — had cast a 
doubt upon the iiistorical accuracy of the facts connected 
with the tragic death of Vatel, the renowned chef of the 
Prince de Conde. According to Angilbert, Vatel did not 
throw himself upon his sword because the fish for Louis 
XIV.'s dinner had not arrived, but because it had arrived, 
been cooked, and was found " not to be so fresh as it might 
be." The elimination of those dishes would have dis- 
turbed the whole of the economy of the metiit, and rather 
than suffer such disgrace Vatel made an end of himself. 
" For you see, monsieur," Angilbert is supposed to have 
said, "one can very well arrange a perfectdinner without fish, 
as long as one knows beforehand ; but one cannot modify 
a service that has been thought out with it, when it fails at 
a moment's notice. As every one of my chefs is a treasure, 
who would not scruple to imitate the sacrifice of his famouts 
prototype ; and as I do not wish to expose him to such a 
heroic but inconvenient death, we take the certain for the 
uncertain, consequently doubtful fish means no fish." 

Truth or fiction, the story accurately conveys the pride 
of the proprietors in the unsullied gastronomic traditions of 
the establishment, and there is no doubt that they were ably 
seconded in that respect by every one around them, even to 
the clientele itself. Not a single one of the latter would have 
called the waiters by their names, nor would these have vent- 
ured to rehearse the names of the dishes in a kind of slang 
or mutilated French, which is becoming more frequent day 
by day, and which is at best but fit as a means of communi- 
cation between waiters and scullions. Least of all, would 
they have numbered the clients, as is done at present. A 



STILL THE CAFl^] DE PARIS. 29 

gentleman sitting at tabic No. 5 was " the gentleman at table 
No. 5," not merely "number five." There was little need for 
the bellowing and shouting from one end of the room to 
the other, because the head waiter himself had an eye every- 
where. The word " addition," which people think it good 
taste in the seventies and eighties to employ when asking for 
their bills, was never heard. People did not i3rofess to know 
the nature of the arithmetical operation by which the total 
of tlieir liabilities was arrived at; they left that to the cashier 
and the rest of the underlings. 

1^0 coal or gas was used in the Cafe de Paris : lamps and 
wood fires upstairs ; charcoal, and only that of a peculiar 
kind, in the kitchens, which might have been a hundred 
miles distant, for all we knew, for neither the rattling of 
dishes nor the smell of preparation betrayed their vicinity. 
A charming, subdued hum of voices attested the presence of 
two or three score of human beings attending to the inner 
man ; the idiotic giggle, the atfected little shrieks of the shop- 
girl or housemaid promoted to be the companion of the quasi- 
man of the Avorld was never heard there. The cabinet par- 
ticulier was not made a feature of the Cafe de Paris, and 
sappers were out of the question. Now and then the frank 
laugliter of the younger members of a family party, and that 
was all. As a rule, however, there were few strangers at the 
Cafe de Paris, or what are called chance customers, as dis- 
tinct from periodical ones. But there were half a score of 
tables absolutely sacred from the invasion of no matter whom, 
such as those of the Marquis du IT allays. Lord Seymour, the 
Marquis de St. Cricq, M. Romieu, Prince Rostopchine, Prince 
SoltikofT, Dr. Veron, etc., etc. Lord Palmerston, when in 
Paris, scarcely ever dined anywhere else than at the Cafe de 
Paris — of course I mean when dining at a public establish- 
ment. 

Almost every evening there was an interchange of dishes 
or of wines between those tables ; for instance. Dr. Veron, of 
whom I will have a good deal to say in these notes, and who 
was very fond of Musigny vintage, rarely missed offering 
some to the Marquis du Hallays, who, in his turn, sent him 
of the finest dishes from his table. For all these men not 
only professed to eat well, but never to suffer from indiges- 
tion. Their gastronomy was really an art, but an art aided 
by science which was applied to the simplest dish. One of 
these was veau a la casserole^ which figured at least three 



30 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

times a week on the bill of fare, and the like of which I 
have never tasted elsewhere. Its recuperative qualities were 
vouched for by such men as Alfred de Musset, Balzac, and 
Alexandre Dumas. The former partook of it whenever it 
was on the bill ; the others often came, after a spell of hard 
work, to recruit their mental and bodily strength with it, and 
maintained that nothing set them up so effectually. 

These three men were particularly interesting to me, and 
their names will frequently recur in these notes. I was very 
young, and, though perhaps not so enthusiastic about litera- 
ture as I was about painting and sculpture, it would indeed 
have been surprising if I had remained indifferent to the 
fascination experienced by almost every one in their society : 
for let me state at once that the great poet, the great play- 
wright, and the great novelist were even something more than 
men of genius ; they were men of the Avorld, and gentlemen 
who thought it worth their while to be agreeable compan- 
ions. Unlike Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, and 
Eugene Sue, all of whom I knew about the same time, they 
did not deem it necessary to stand mentally aloof from ordi- 
nary mortals. Alfred de Musset and Alexandre Dumas 
were both very handsome, but each in a different way. With 
his tall, slim figure, auburn wavy hair and beard, blue eyes, 
and finely-shaped mouth and nose, De Musset gave one the 
impression of a dandy cavalry officer in mufti, rather than of 
a poet : the " Miss Byron " which Preault the sculptor ap- 
plied to him was, perhaps, not altogether undeserved, if 
judged intellectually and physically at first sight. There 
w^as a feminine grace about all his movements. The " Con- 
fessions d'un Enfant du Siecle," his play, "Frederic and 
Bernerette," were apt to stir the heart of women rather than 
that of men ; but was it not perhaps because the majority of 
the strong sex cannot be stirred except with a pole ? And 
the poet who was so sensitive to everything rough as to leave 
invariably the coppers given to him in exchange, was un- 
likely to"^ take voluntarily to such an unwieldy and clumsy 
instrument to produce his effects."^ 

* This reluctance to handle coppers proved a sore grief to his more econom- 
ical and less fastidious brother Paul, who watched like a guardian angel over 
his junior, w^hom he worshipped. It is on record that he only said a harsh 
word to him once in his life, namely, when they wanted to make him, Paul, a 
member of the xicademie Francaise. " C'est bien assez d'un immortel dans la 
famille," he replied to those who counselled liim to stand. Tlien, turning to 



WALKS BEFORE SUNRISE. 31 

Throughout these notes, I intend to abstain carefully 
from literary judgments. 1 am not competent to enter into 
them ; but, if I were, I should still be reluctant to do so in 
the case of Alfred de Musset, who, to my knowledge, never 
questioned the talent of any one. De Musset improved upon 
better acquaintance. He was apt to strike one at first as 
distant and suj^ercilious. He was neither the one nor the 
other, simply very reserved, and at the best of times very 
sad, not to say melancholy. It was not affectation, as has 
been said so often ; it was his nature. The charge of super- 
ciliousness arose from his distressing short-sightedness, which 
compelled him to stare very hard at people without the least 
intention of being offensive. 

I have said that Balzac often came, after a spell of hard 
work, to recruit his forces with the veau a la casserole of the 
Cafe de Paris ; I should have added that this was generally 
in the autumn and winter, for, at the end of the spring and 
during the summer, the dinner hour, seven, found Balzac 
still a prisoner at home. Few of his acquaintances and 
friends ever caught sight of him, tliey were often in total 
ignorance of his whereabouts, and such news as reached 
them generally came through Joseph Merv, the poet and 
novelist, the only one who came across him during those 
periods of eclipse. Mery was an inveterate gambler, and 
spent night after night at the card-table. He rarely left it 
before daybreak. His way lay past the Cafe de Paris, and 
for four consecutive mornings he had met Balzac strolling 
leisurely up and down, dressed in a pan talon a pieds (trousers 
not terminating below the ankle, but with feet in them like 
stockings), and frock coat with velvet facings. The second 
morning, Mery felt surprised at the coincidence ; the third, 
he was puzzled ; the fourth, he could hold out no longer, 
and asked Balzac the reason of these nocturnal perambula- 
tions round about the same spot, Balzac put his hand in 
his pocket and produced an almanack, showing that the sun 
did not rise before 3.40, " I am being tracked by the officers 

his brother, " Je ne comprends pas pourquoi tu t'es fourre dans cette sralere, si 
elle est assez grande pour moi, tu dois y etre joliment a I'etroit." It is'dithcult 
to imagine a greater instance of brotherly pride and admiration, because Paul 
de Musset was by no means a nonentity, only from a very early age he had al- 
ways merged his individuality in that"^ of Alfred. To some one who once re- 
marked upon this in my hearing, lie answered, " Que voulez-vous? c^est comnie 
cela : Alfred a eu toujours la moitie du lit, seulement la moitie etait toujours 
prise du milieu." 



32 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

of the Tribunal de Commerce, and obliged to hide myself 
during the day ; but at this hour I am free, and can take a 
walk, for as long as the sun is not up they cannot arrest 
me." 

I remember having, read that Ouvrard, the great army 
contractor, had done the same for many years ; nevertheless, 
he was arrested one day, — the authorities proved that the al- 
manack was wrong, that the sun rose ten minutes earlier 
than was stated therein. He brought an action against the 
compiler and publishers. They had to pay him damages. 

Though literary remuneration was not in those days what 
it became later on, it was sufficiently large to make it diffi- 
cult to explain the chronic impecuniosity of Balzac, though 
not that of Dumas. They were not gamblers, and had not 
the terrible fits of idleness or drinking which left Ue Musset 
stranded every now and again. Lamartine suffered from the 
same complaint, I mean impecuniosit3\ There is proof of 
Balzac's industry and frugality in two extracts from his let- 
ters to his mother, dated Angouleme, July, 1832, when he 
himself was thirty-two years old, and had already written 
half a dozen masterpieces. " Several bills are due, and, if I 
cannot find the money for them, I will have them protested 
and let the law take its course. It will give me breathing 
time, and I can settle costs and all afterwards." 

Meanwhile he works eight hours a day at " Louis Lam- 
bert," one of the best things among his numberless best 
things. His mother sends him a hundred francs, and, per- 
haps with the same pen with which he wrote those two mar- 
vellous chapters that stand out like a couple of priceless 
rubies from among the mass of other jewels, he thanks her 
and accounts for them. •■' For the copying of the maps, 20 
frs. ; for my passport, 10 frs. I owed 15 frs. for discount on 
one of my bills, and 15 frs. on my fare. 15 frs. for flowers 
as a birtiulav present. Lost at cards, 10 frs. Postage and 
servant's tips, 15 frs. Total, 100 frs." 

But these ten francs have not been lost at one fell swoop ; 
they represent his bad luck at the gaming telle during the 
whole month of his stay at Angouleme, at the house of his 
friend and sister's schoolfellow, Madame Zulma Carraud, — 
hence, something like seven sous (3-jfZ.) per day : for which 
extravagance he makes up, on his return to Paris, by plung- 
ing into work harder than ever. He goes to roost at 7 p.m., 
" like the fowls ; " and he is called at 1 a.m., when he writes 



HONORE DE BALZAC. 33 

until 8 a.m. He takes another hour and a half of sleep, and, 
after partaking of a light meal, " gets into his collar " until 
four in the afternoon. After that, he receives a few friends, 
takes a bath, or goes out, and immediately he has swallowed 
his dinner he " turns in," as stated above. " I shall be com- 
pelled to lead this nigger's life for a few months without 
stopping, in order not to be swamped by those terrible bills 
that are due." 

These extracts are not personal recollections. I have in- 
serted them to make good my statement that Balzac was 
neither a gambler, a drunkard, nor an idler. 

"How does he spend his money?" I asked Mery, when 
he had told us of his fourth meeting with Balzac on that 
very morning. 

"In sops to his imagination, in balloons to the land of 
dreams, which balloons he constructs with his hard- won 
earnings and inliates with the essence of his visions, but 
which nevertheless will not rise three feet from the earth," 
he answered. Then he went on explaining : '' Balzac is 
firmly convinced that every one of his characters has had, or 
has still, its counterpart in real life, notably the cliaracters 
that have risen from humble beginnings to great wealth ; 
and he thinks that, having worked out the secret of their 
success on paper, he can put it in practice. He embarks on 
the most harum-scarum speculations without the slightest 
practical knowledge; as, for instance, when he drew the 
l^lans for his country-house at the Jardies ('Ville d'Avray), 
and insisted upon the builder carrying them out in every re- 
spect while he was away. When the place was finished there 
was not a single staircase. Of course, they had to put them 
outside, and he maintained that it was part of his original 
plan ; but he had never given a thought to the means of 
ascent. But here is Monsieur Louis Lurine. If you would 
like an idea of Balzac's impracticability, let him tell you what 
occurred between Balzac and Kusfelmann a few months a^o." 

Kugelmann was at that time publishing a very beautifully 
illustrated work, entitled " Les Kues de Paris," which Louis 
Lurine was editing. We were standing outside the Cafe 
Riche, and I knew Lurine by sight. Mery introduced me to 
him. After a few preliminary remarks, Lurine told us the 
following story. Of course, many years have elapsed since, 
but I think I can trust to my memory in this instance. 

" I had suggested," said Lurine, " that Balzac should do 
4 



34 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

the Eue de Eiclielien, and we sent for him. I did not want 
more than half a slieet, so imagine my surprise when Balzac 
named his conditions, viz., five thousand francs, something 
over six hundred francs a page of about six hundred words. 
Kugelmann began to yell ; I simply smiled ; seeing which, 
Balzac said, as soberly as possible, ' You'll admit that, in 
order to depict a landscape faithfully, one should study its 
every detail. Well, how would you have me describe the Rue 
de Richelieu, convey an idea of its commercial aspect, unless 
I visit, one after the other, the various establishments it con- 
tains ? Suppose I begin by the Boulevard des Italiens : I'd be 
bound to take my dejeuner at the Cafe Cardinal, I would have 
to buy a couple of scores at Brandus', a gun at the gunsmith's 
next door, a breastpin at the next shop. Could I do less than 
order a coat at the tailor's, a pair of boots at the bootmaker's ? ' 

" I cut him short. ' Don't go any further,' I said, ' or 
else we'll have you in at " Compagnie des Indes," and, as 
both lace and Indian shawls have gone up in price, we'll be 
bankrupt before we know wiiere we are.' 

" Consequent!}^," concluded Lurine, " the thing fell 
through., and we gave the commission to Gruenot-Lacointe, 
who has done the thing very well and has written twice the 
pages Balzac was asked for, without buying as much as a pair 
of gloves." 

When Balzac was not being harassed by the officials of 
the Tribunal de Commerce, he had to dodge the authorities 
of the National Guards, who generally had a warrant against 
him for neglect of duty. Unlike his great contemporary 
Dumas, Balzac had an invincible repugnance to play the 
amateur warrior — a repugnance, by-the-way, to which we owe 
one of the most masterly portraits of his wonderful gallery, 
that of the self-satisfied, bumptious, detestable bourgeoise, who 
struts about in his uniform ; I am alluding to Crevel of " La 
Cousine Bette." But civil discipline could take no cogni- 
zance of the novelist's likes and dislikes, and, after repeated 
" notices " and " warnings," left at his registered domicile, his 
incarceration was generally decided upon. As a rule, this 
happened about half a dozen times in a twelvemonth. 

The next thing was to catch the refractory national guard, 
which was not easy, seeing that, in order to avoid an enforced 
sojourn at the Hotel des Haricots,* Balzac not only disap- 

* The name of the military prison which was originally built on the site of 



BALZAC AND THE NATIONAL GUARD. 35 

peared from his usual haunts, but left his regular domicile, 
and took an apartment elsewhere under an assumed name. 
On one occasion, at a small lodgings which he had taken near 
his publisher, Hippolyte Souverain, under the name of Ma- 
dame Dupont, Leon Gozlan, having found him out, sent him 
a letter addressed to " Madame Dupont, nee Balzac." 

The sergeant-major of Balzac's company had undoubtedly 
a grudge against him. He haiDpened to be a perfumer, and 
ever since the publication and success of " Cesar Birotteau " 
the Paris perfumers bore Balzac no goodwill. That particu- 
lar one had sworn by all his essences and bottles that he would 
lay hands on the recalcitrant private of his company in the 
streets, for only under such conditions could he arrest him. 
To watch at Balzac's ordinary domicile was of no use, and, 
when he had discovered his temporary residence, he had to 
lure him out of it, because the other was on his guard. 

One morning, while the novelist was hard at work, his old 
housekeeper, whom he always took with him, came to tell 
him that there was a large van downstairs with a case ad- 
dressed to him. " How did they find me out here ? " ex- 
claim^ed Balzac, and despatched the dame to gather further 
particulars. In a few moments she returned. The case con- 
tained an Etruscan vase sent from Ital}^ but, seeing that it had 
been knocking about for the last three days in every quarter 
of Paris in the carman's efforts to find out the consignee, the 
former was anxious that M. Balzac should verify the intact 
condition of the package before it was unloaded. Balzac fell 
straight into the trap. Giving himself no time even to ex- 
change his dressing-gown, or rather his monk's frock he was 
in the habit of wearing, for a coat, or his slippers for a pair 
of boots, he rushed downstairs, watching with a benign smile 
the carrier handling most delicately the treasure that had 
come to him. 

" Caught at last," said a stentorian voice behind him, and 
dispelling the dream as its owner laid his hand on the novel- 
ist's shoulder, while a gigantic companion planted himself 
in front of the street door and cut off all retreat that way. 

" With a refinement of cruelty, which in the eyes of pos- 
terity will considerably diminish the glory of his victory " — 
I am quoting Balzac's own words as he related the scene to 

the former College Montaigu, where the scholars were almost exclusively fed 
on haricot beans. Throughout its removals the prison preserved its nickname. 
— Editor. 



36 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

us at the Hotel cles Haricots— the sergeant-major perfumer 
would not allow his prisoner to change his clothes, and while 
the van with the precious Etruscan vase disappeared in the 
distance, Balzac was hustled into a cab to spend a week in 
durance vile, where on that occasion he had the company of 
Adolphe Adam, the composer of " Le Postilion de Lonju- 
meau." 

However, " les jours de fete etaient passes," and had been 
for the last five years, ever since the Hotel des Haricots had 
been transferred from the town mansion of the De Bazan- 
courts in the Rue des Fosses- Saint- Germain to its then locale 
near the Orleans railway station. There were no more ban- 
quets in the refectory as there had been of yore. Each pris- 
oner had his meals in his cell. Joseph Mery, INestor Eoque- 
plan, and I were admitted as the clock struck two, and had 
to leave exactly an hour afterwards. It was during this visit 
that Balzac enacted the scene for us which I have endeavoured 
to describe above, and reminded Mery of the last dinner he 
had given to Dumas, Jules Sandeau, and several others in 
the former prison, which dinner cost five hundred francs. 
Eugene Sue, who was as unwilling as Balzac to perform his 
civic duties, had had three of his own servants to wait upon 
him there, and some of his plate and silver brought to his 
cell. 

Seeing that the name of the celebrated author of " Les 
Mysteres de Paris " has presented itself in the course of these 
notes, I may just as well have done with him, for he forms 
part of the least agreeable of my recollections. He was also 
an liaUtue of the Cafe de Paris. A great deal has been 
written about him ; what has never been sufficiently insisted 
upon Avas the inveterate snollisliness of the man. When I 
first knew him, about '42-'43, he was already in the zenith 
of his glory, but I had often heard others mention his name 
before then, and never very favourably. His dandyism was 
offensive, mainly because it did not sit naturally upon him. 
It did not spring from an innate refinement, but from a love 
of show, although his father, who had been known to some 
of the son's familiars, was a worthy man, a doctor, and, it 
appears, a very good doctor, but somewhat brusque, like our 
own Abernethy ; still much more of a gentleman at heart 
than the son. " He did not like Eugene's extravagance, and 
when the latter, about '24, launched out into a cabriolet, he 
shipped him off on one of the king's vessels, as a surgeon ; 



THE ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH JOCKY CLUB. 37 

to which fact French literature owed the first novels of the 
future author of " Les Mysteres de Paris " and " Le Juif- 
Errant." 

But the father was gathered to his fathers, and Eugene, 
who had never taken kindly to a seafaring life, returned to 
Paris, to spend his inheritance and to resume his old habits, 
which made one of his acquaintances say that " le pere and 
le fils had both entered upon a better life." It appears that, 
though somewhat of a poseur from the very beginning, he 
was witty and amusing, and readily found access to the circle 
that frequented the gardens of the Tivoli and the Cafe de 
Paris.* They, in their turn, made him a member of the 
Jockey Club Avhen it was founded, which kindness they 
unanimously regretted, as will be seen directly. 

The Tivoli gardens, though utterly forgotten at present, 
was in reality the birthplace of the French Jocky Club. 
About the year 1833 a man named Bryon, one of whose de- 
scendants keeps, at the hour I write, a large livery stables 
near the Grand Cafe, opened a pigeon-shooting gallery in the 
Tivoli ; the pigeons, from what I have heard, mainly con- 
sisting of quails, larks, and other birds. The pigeons shot at 
were Avooden ones, poised up high in the air, but motionless, 
as we still see them at the suburban fairs around Paris. 
Seven years before, Bryon had started a " society of amateurs 
of races," to whom, for a certain consideration, he let a mov- 
able stand at private meetings, for there were no others until 
the Society for the Encouragement of breeding French 
Horses started operations in 1834. But the deliberations at 
first took place at Bryon's place in the Tivoli gardens, and 
continued there until, one day, Bryon asked the fourteen or 
fifteen members why they should not have a locale of their 
own ; the result was that they took modest quarters in the 
Rue du Helder, or rather amalgamated with a small club lo- 
cated there under the name of Le Bouge (The Den) ; for 
Lord Seymour, the Duke de Nemours, Pnnce Demidoff, and 
the rest were sufficiently clear-sighted to perceive that a 
Jockey Club governed on the English principle was entirely 
out of the question. That was the origin of the French 
Jockey Club, w^iich, after various migrations, is, at the time 



* There were two Ti\'oli gardens, both in the same neighbourhood, the site 
of the present Quartier de I'Europe. The author is alluding to the second, so 
often mentioned in the novels of Paul de Kock. — Editor. 



38 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

of writing, magnificently housed in one of the palatial man- 
sions of the Rue Scribe. As a matter of course, some of the 
fashionable habitues of the Cafe cle Paris, though not know- 
ing a fetlock from a pastern, were but too pleased to join an 
institution which, with the mania for everything English in 
full swing, then conferred as it were upon its members a 
kind of patent of " good form," and, above all, of exclusive- 
ness, for which some, even amidst the flesh-pots of the cele- 
brated restaurant, longed. Because, it must be remembered, 
though the majority of the company at the Cafe de Paris 
were very well from the point of view of birth and social po- 
sition, there was no jDOssibility of excluding those who could 
lay no claim to such distinctions, provided they had the 
money to pay their reckoning, and most of them had more 
than enough for that. It appears that Eugene Sue was not 
so objectionable as he became afterwards, when the wonder- 
ful success of his " Mysteres de Paris " and the " Juif-Errant " 
had turned his head ; he was made an original member of 
the club. Election on the nomination by three sponsors was 
not necessary then. That article Avas not inserted in the 
rules until two years after the foundation of the Paris Jockey 
Club. 

Of the success attending Sue's two best-known ivorks, I can 
speak from personal experience ; for I was old enough to be 
impressed by it, and foolish enough to rank him, on account 
of it, with IBalzac and Dumas, perhaps a little higher than 
the former. After the lapse of many years, I can only con- 
sole myself for my infatuation with the thought that thou- 
sands, of far greater intellectual attainments than mine, were 
in the same boat, for it must not be supposed that iha furore 
created by " Les Mysteres de Paris " was confined to one 
class, and that class the worst educated one. While it ap- 
peared in serial form in the Dcbafs, one had to bespeak the 
paper several hours beforehand, because, unless one sub- 
scribed to it, it was impossible to get it from the news-vendors. 
As for the reading-rooms where it was supposed to be kept, 
the proprietors frankly laughed in your face if you happened 
to ask for it, after you had paid your two sous admission. 
" Monsieur is joking. We have got five copies, and we let 
them out at ten sous each for half an hour : that's the time it 
takes to read M. Sue's'story. We have one copy here, and if 
monsieur likes to take his turn he may do so, though he will 
probably have to wait for three or four hours." 



EUGENE SUE. 39 

At last the guileless demoiselle behind the counter found 
even a more effective way of fleecing her clients. The cabi- 
nets de lecture altered their fees, and the two sous, which 
nntil then had conferred the right of staying as long as one 
liked, were transformed into the price of admission for one 
hour. Each reader received a ticket on entering, stating the 
time, and the shrewd cassiere made the round every ten min- 
utes. I may say without exaggeration that the days on which 
the instalment of fiction was " crowded out," there was a 
general air of listlessness about Paris. And, after the first 
few weeks, this happened frequently ; for by that time the 
Bertins had become quite as clever as their formidable rival, 
the proprietor and editor of the Constitutmmel^ the famous 
Dr. Veron, whom I have already mentioned, but of whom I 
shall have occasion to speak again and again, for he was one 
of the most notable characters in the Paris of my early man- 
hood. But to return for a moment to "Les Mysteres de 
Paris " and its author. 

The serial, then, was frequently interrupted for one or 
two days, without notice, however, to the readers ; on its re- 
sumption there was a nice little paragraph to assure the 
" grandes dames de par le monde," as well as their maids, 
with regard to the health of j\I. Sue, who was supposed to have 
been too ill to work. The public took all this an grand serieux. 
They either chose to forget, or were ignorant of the fact, that 
a novel of that kind, especially in the early days of serial 
feuilleton, was not delivered to the editor bit by bit. Sue, 
great man as he was, would not have dared to inaugurate the 
system only adopted somewhat later by Alexandre Dumas the 
Elder, namely, that of writing "from hand to mouth." 
These paragraphs served a dual purpose — they whetted the 
lady and other readers' interest in the author, and informed 
the indifferent ones how great that interest was. For these 
paragraphs were, or professed to be, — I really believe they 
were, — the courteous replies to hundreds of kind inquiries 
which the author " could not acknowledge separately for lack 
of time." 

But this was not all. There was really a good excuse for 
Eugene Sue " se prenant an serieux," seeing that some of the 
most eminent magistrates looked upon him in that light and 
opened a correspondence with him, submitting their ideas 
about reforming such criminals as '• le maitre d'ecole," and 
praising Prince Rodolph, or rather Eugene Sue under that 



40 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

name, for " his laudable efforts in the cause of humanity.'* 
In reality, Sue was in the position of Moliere's " bourgeois 
gentilhomme " who spoke prose without being aware of it ; for 
there was not the smallest evidence from his former work that 
he intended to inaugurate any crusade, either socialistic or 
philanthropic, when he began his " Mysteres de Paris." He 
simply wanted to write a stirring novel. But, unlike M. Jour- 
dain, he did not plead ignorance of his own good motives when 
congratulated upon them. On the contrary, he gravely and 
officially replied in the Debats without winking. Some of the 
papers, not to be outdone, gravely recounted how whole fami- 
lies had been converted from their evil ways by the perusal of 
the novel ; how others, after supper, had dropped on their knees 
to pray for their author ; how one working man had exclaimed, 
" You may say what you like, it would be a good thing if Provi- 
dence sent many men like M. Sue in this world to take up the 
cudgels of the honest and struggling artisan." Thereupon 
Beranger, who did not like to be forgotten in this chorus of 
praise, paid a ceremonious visit to Sue, and between the two 
they assumed the protectorship of the horny-handed son of toil. 
It must not be supposed that I am joking or exaggerat- 
ing, and that the encfofhnent was confined to the loAver classes, 
and to provincial and metropolitan faddists. Such men as M. 
de Lourdoueix, the editor of the Gazette de France^ fell into 
the trap. I have pointed out elsewhere that the republicans 
and socialists of those days were not necessarily godless folk, 
and M. de Lourdoueix fitly concluded that a socialistic writer 
like Sue might become a powerful weapon in his hands against 
the Jesuits. So he went to the novelist, and gave him a com- 
mission to that effect. The latter accepted, and conceived the 
plot of " The Wandering Jew." When it was sketched out, 
he communicated it to the editor; but whether that gentle- 
man had reconsidered the matter in the interval, or whether 
he felt frightened at the horribly tragic conception with 
scarcely any relief, he refused the novel, unless it was modi- 
fied to a great extent and its blood-curdling episodes softened. 
The author, taking himself cm serieux this time as a religious 
reformer, declined to alter a line. Dr. Veron got wind of the 
affair, bought the novel as it stood, and, by dint of a system 
of puffing and advertising which would even make a modern 
American stare, obtained a success with it in the Constitii- 
z^ioTz^^eZ which equalled if it did not surpass that of the Debats 
with the " Mysteres." 



DE MUSSET AND SUE. 41 

" It is very amusing indeed," said George Sand one night, 
" but there are too many animals. I hope we shall soon get 
out of this menagerie." Xevertheless, she frankly admitted 
that she would not like to miss an instalment for ever so 
much. 

-^.^ Meanwhile Sue posed and posed, not as a writer — for, like 
Horace Walpole, he was almost ashamed of the title — but as 
" a man of the world " who knew nothing about literature, 
but whose wish to benefit humanity had been greater than his 
reluctance to enter the lists with such men as Balzac and Du- 
mas. After his dinner at the Cafe de Paris, he would gravely 
stand on the steps smoking his cigar and listen to the conver- 
sation with an air of superiority without attempting to take 
part in it. His mind was supposed to be far away, devising 
schemes for the social and moral improvement of his fellow- 
creatures. These philanthropic musings did not prevent him 
from paying a great deal of attention — too much perhaps — 
to his personal appearance, for even in those days of beaux, 
bucks, and dandies, of Counts d'Orsay and others, men could 
not help thinking Eugene Sue overdressed. He rarely ap- 
peared without spurs to his boots, and he would no more have 
done without a new pair of white kid gloves every evening 
than without his dinner. Other men, like Xestor de Eoque- 
plan, Alfred de Musset, Major Fraser, all of whose names will 
frequently recur in these notes, did not mind having their 
gloves cleaned, though the process was not so perfect as it is 
now ; Eugene Sue averred that the smell of cleaned gloves 
made him ill. Alfred de Musset, who could be very imperti- 
nent when he liked, but who was withal a very good fellow, 
said one day : " Mais enfin, mon ami, 9a ne sent pas pire que 
les bouges que vous nous depeignez. A^'y seriez vous jamais 
alle ? " 

In short, several years before the period of which I now 
treat, Eugene Sue had begun to be looked upon coldly at the 
Jockey Club on account of the " airs he gave himself ; " and 
three years before the startling success of his work, he had 
altogether ceased to go there, though he was still a member, 
and remained so nominally until '47, when his name was re- 
moved from the list in accordance with Rule 5. Ov/ing to 
momentary pecuniary embarrassments, he had failed to pay 
his subscription. It may safely be asserted that this was 
merely a pretext to get rid of him, because such stringent 
measures are rarely resorted to at any decent club, whether ia 



42 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

London or Paris, and least of all at the Jockey Clubs there. 
The fact was, that the members did not care for a fellow- 
member whose taste differed so materially from their own, 
whose daily avocations and pursaits had nothing in common 
with theirs ; for though Eugene Sue as early as 1835 had 
possessed a race-horse, named Mameluke, which managed to 
come in a capital last at Maisons-sur-Seine (afterwards Mai- 
sons- Lafitte) ; though he had ridden his liaque every day in 
the Bois, and driven his cabriolet every afternoon in the 
Champs-Elysees, the merest observer could easily perceive 
that all this was done for mere show, to use the French ex- 
pression, "pose." As one of the members observed, " M. 
8ue est toujours trop habille, trop carosse, et surtout trop 
eperonne." 

M. Sue was all that, and though the Jockey Club at that 
time was by no means the unobtrusive body of men it is to- 
day, its excesses and eccentricities were rarely indulged in 
public, except perhaps in carnival time. A M. de Chateau- 
villard might take it into his head to play a game of billiards 
on horseback, or M. de Machado might live surrounded by a 
couple of hundred parrots if he liked ; none of these fancies 
attracted the public's notice : M. Sue, by his very profession, 
attracted too much of it, and brought a great deal of it into 
the club itself; hence, when he raised a violent protest 
against his expulsion and endeavoured to neutralize it by 
sending in his resignation, the committee maintained its 
original decision. A few years after this, Eugene Sue disap- 
peared from the Paris horizon. 



CHAPTER III. 

Alexandre Dumas pere — "Why he made himself particularly agreeable to Eng- 
lishmen — His way of silencing people — The pursuit he loved best next to 
literature — He has the privilege of going down to the kitchens of the Cafe 
de Paris — No one questions his literary genius, some question his culinary 
capacities — Dr. Veron and his coi'don-bleu — Dr. Veron's reasons for dining 
out instead of at home— Dr. Veron's friend, the philanthropist, who does 
not go to the theatre because he objects to be hurried with his emotions — 
Dr. Veron, instigated by his cook, accuses Dumas of having collaborateurs 
in preparing his dishes as he v.-as known to have collaborateurs in his lit- 
erary work — Dumas' wrath — He invites us to a dinner which shall be 
wholly cooked by him in the presence of a delegate to be chosen by the 

fuests — The lot tails upon me — Dr. Veron and Sophie make the amende 
onorable — A dinner-party at Veron's — A curious lawsuit in connection 
with Weber's '' Freyschutz'" — Xestor Roqueplan, who became the successor 
of the defendant in the case, suggests a way out of it — Leon Fillet virtually 
adopts it and wins the day — AVimilar plan adopted yeai-s before by a fire- 
man on duty at the opera, on being tried by court-martial for having fallen 
asleep during the performance of " Guido et Genevra " — Firemen not bad 
judges of phxys and operas — They were often consulted both by ^Meyerbeer 
and Dumas — Dumas at work — How he idled his time away — Dumas causes 
the tratfic receipts of the Chemin de Fer de I'Ouest to swell during his 
three years' residence at Saint-Germain — M. de Montalivet advises Louis- 
Philippe to invite Dumas to Versailles, to see what his presence will do 
for the i-oyal city — Louis-Philippe does not act ujDon the advice— The re- 
lations between Dumas and the d'Orleans family — ^After the Revolution of 
'48, Dumas becomes a candidate for parliament — The story of his canvass 
and his address to the electors at Joigny^Dumas' utter indilference to 
money matters — He casts his burdens upon others — Dumas and his credit- 
ors—Writs and distraints— How they are dealt with — Dumas' indiscrimi- 
nate generosity — A dozen houses full of new furniture in half as many 
years — Dumas' frugality at table — Literary remuneration— Dumas and his 
son — '' Leave me a hundred francs." 

AmoxCt my most pleasant recollections of those days are 
those of Alexandre Dumas. To quote his own words, " when- 
ever he met an Englishman he considered it his particular 
duty to make himself agreeable to him, as part of the debt 
he owed to Shakespeare and Walter Scott." I doubt whether 
Dumas ever made himself deliberately disagreeable to any 
one ; even when provoked, he managed to disarm his adver- 
sary with an epigram, rather than wound him. One evening, 
a professor at one of the provincial universities had been din- 
ing at the Cafe de Paris, as the guest of Roger de Beauvoir. 

(43) 



44: AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

He had a magnificent cameo breast-pin. It elicited the ad- 
miration of every one, and notably that of Dumas. He said 
at once that it was a portrait of Julius Csesar. 

" Are you an archfeologist ? " asked the professor. 

" I," replied Dumas, " I am absolutely nothing." 

" Still," insisted the visitor, " you perceived at once that 
it was a portrait of Julius Caesar." 

" That is not very wonderful. Caesar is essentially a Ro- 
man type ; and, besides, I know Caesar as well as most people, 
and perhaps better." 

To tell a professor of history — especially a provincial one 
— that one knows Coesar as well as most people and perhaps 
better, is naturally to provoke the question, "In what ca- 
pacity?" As a matter of course the question followed imme- 
diately. 

" In the capacity of Caesar's historian," said Dumas im- 
perturbably. 

AVe were getting interested, because we foresaw that the 
professor would, in a few minutes, get the worst of it. Du- 
mas' eyes were twinkling with mischief. 

"You have written a history of Caesar?" asked the 
learned man. 

" Yes ; why not ? " 

" Well, you won't mind my being frank with you : it is 
because it has never been mentioned in the world of savans." 

" The world of savans never mentions me." 

" Still, a history of Caesar ought to make somewhat of a 
sensation.'^ 

" Mine has not made any. People read it, and that was 
all. It is the books which it is impossible to read that make 
a sensation ; they are like the dinners one cannot digest ; the 
dinners one digests are not as much as thought of next morn- 
ing." That was Dumas' way of putting a would-be imperti- 
nent opponent hors de comhat^ and his repartees were fre- 
quently drawn from the pursuit he loved as well, if not better 
than literature, namely, cooking. It may sound exaggerated, 
but I verily believe that Dumas took a greater pride in con- 
cocting a stew than in constructing a novel or a plav. Very 
often, in the middle of the dinner, he would put down his 
knife and fork. " ^a, c'est rudement bon : il faut que je 
m'en procure la recette." And Guepet was sent for to au- 
thorize Dumas to descend to the lower regions and have a 
consultation with his chefs. He was the only one of the 



DR. VERON. 45 

habitues who had ever been in the kitchens of the Cafe de 
Paris. As a rule these excursions were followed by an invi- 
tation to dine at Dumas' two or three clays hence, when the 
knowledge freshly acquired would be put into practice. 

There were few of us who questioned Dumas' literary 
genius ; there were many who suspected his culinary abili- 
ties, and notably among them, Dr. Veron. The germs of 
this unbelief had been sown in the doctor's mind by his own 
cordon-bleu, Sophie. The erstwhile director of the opera 
lived, at that time, in a beautiful apartment on the first floor 
of a nice house in the Kue Taitbout, at the corner of which 
the Cafe de Paris was situated. Sophie had virtually a sine- 
cure of it, because, with the exception of a*dinner-party now 
and then, her master, who was a bachelor, took his dinners 
at the restaurant. And with regard to the dejeuner, there 
was not much chance of her displaying her talents, because 
the man, who was reputed to be a very Apicius, was frugality 
itself. His reasons for dining out instead of at home were 
perfectly logical, though they sounded paradoxical. One 
day, when 1 was remarking npon the seemingly strange habit 
of dining out, when he was paying " a perfect treasure " at 
home, he gave me these reasons. " My dear friend, depend 
upon it that it is man's stomach which found the aphorism, 
' Qui va 'piano va sano^ qui va sano va lonta.no? In your own 
home the soup is on the table at a certain hour, the roast is 
taken off the jack, the dessert is spread out on the sideboard. 
Your servants, in order to get more time over their meals, 
hurry you np ; they do not serve you, they gorge you. At 
the restaurant, on the contrary, they are never in a hurry, 
they let you wait. Aud, besides, I always tell the waiters not 
to mind"^me ; that I like being kept a long while — that is one 
of the reasons why I come here. 

" Another thing, at the restaurant the door is opened at 
every moment and something happens. A friend, a chum, 
or a mere acquaintance comes in ; one chats and laughs : all 
this aids digestion. A man ought not to be like a boa-con- 
strictor, he ought not to make digestion a business apart. 
He ougflit to dine and to digest at the same time, and nothing 
aids this dual function like good conversation. Perhaps the 
servant of Madame de Maintenon, when the latter was still 
Madame Scarron, was a greater philosopher than we suspect 
when he whispered to his mistress, ' Madame, the roast has 
run short ; give them another story.' 



46 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

" I knew a philanthropist," wound np Dr. Veron, " who 
objected as much to be hurried over his emotions as I object 
to be hurried over my meals. For that reason he never went 
to the theatre. When he wanted an emotional fillip, he wan- 
dered about the streets until he met some poor wretch evi- 
dently hungry and out of elbows. He took him to the near- 
est wine-shop, gave him something to eat and to drink, sat 
himself opposite to his guest, and told him to recount his 
misfortunes. ' But take your time over it. I am not in a 
hurry,' he recommended. The poor outcast began his tale ; 
my friend listened attentively until he was thoroughly moved. 
If the man's storv was very sad, he gave him a franc or two ; 
if it was positively heartrending and made him cry, he gave 
him a five-franc piece ; after which, he came to see me, say- 
ing, ' I have thoroughly enjoyed myself, and made the inter- 
vals between each sensational episode last as long as I liked, 
and, what is more, it has just cost me seven francs, the price 
of a stall at the theatre.' " 

To return to Dr. Veron's scepticism with regard to Du- 
mas' culinary accomplishments, and how he was converted. 
Dumas, it appears, had got the recipe for stewing carp from 
a German lady, and, being at that moment on very friendly 
terms with Dr. Veron, which was not always the case, had 
invited him and several others to come and taste the results 
of his experiments. The dish was simply splendid, and for 
days and days Veron, who was really a frugal eater, could 
talk of nothing else to his cook. 

"Where did you taste it?" said Sophie, getting some- 
what jealous of this praise of others ; " at the Cafe de Paris ? " 

"No, at Monsieur Dumas'," was the answer. 

" Well, then, I'll go to Monsieur Dumas' cook, and get 
the recipe." 

" That's of no use," objected her master. " Monsieur Du- 
mas prepared the dish himself." 

" Well, then, I'll go to Monsieur Dumas himself and ask 
him to give me the recipe." 

Sophie was as good as her word, and walked herself off to 
the Chaussee d'Antin. The great novelist felt flattered, and 
gave her every possible information, but somehow the dish 
was not like that her master had so much enjoyed at his 
friend's. Then Sophie grew morose, and began to throw out 
hints about the great man's borrowing other people's feathers 
in his culinary pursuits, just as he did in his literary ones. 



DUMAS AS A COOK. 47 

For Sophie was not altogether illiterate, and the papers at 
that time were frequently charging Dumas with keeping his 
collaborateurs too much in the background and himself too 
much m front. Dumas had never much difficulty in meeting 
such accusations, but Sophie had unconsciously hit upon the 
tactics of the clever solicitor who recommended the barrister 
to abuse the plaintiff, the defendant's case being bad, and she 
put it into practice. " O'est avec sa carpe comnie avec ses 
romans, les autres les font et il y met son nom," she said 
one day. " Je I'ai bien vu, c'est un grand diable de vani- 
teux." 

Now, there was no doubt about it, to those who did not 
know him very well, Dumas was " un grand diable de vani- 
teux ; " and the worthy doctor sat pondering his cook's re- 
marks until he himself felt inclined to think that Dumas had 
a clever chef in the background, upon whose victories he 
plumed himself. Meanwhile Dumas had been out of town 
for more than a month, but a day or so after his return he 
made his appearance at the Cafe de Paris, and, as a matter of 
course, inquired after the result of Sophie's efforts. The doc- 
tor was reticent at first, not caring to acknowledge Sophie's 
failure. He had, however, made the matter public, alleging, 
at the same time, Sophie's suspicions as to Dumas' hidden 
collaborateur, and one of the company was ill advised enough 
to let the cat out of the bag. During the many years of my 
acquaintance with Dumas, I have never seen him in such a 
rage as then. But he toned down in a very few minutes. " II 
n'y a qu'une reponse a une accusation pareille," he said in a 
grandiloquent tone, which, however, had the most comical 
effect, seeing how trifling the matter was in reality — " il n'y 
qu'une reponse ; vous viendrez diner avec moi demain, vons 
choissirez un delegue qui viendra a partir de troi heures me 
voir preparer mon diner." I was the youngest, the choice 
fell upon me. That is how my life-long friendship with Du- 
mas began. At three o'clock next day I was at the Chaussee 
d'Antin, and was taken by the servant into the kitchen, where 
the great novelist stood surrounded by his utensils, some of 
silver, and all of them glistening like silver. With the ex- 
ception of a soupe aux choux, at which, by his own confes- 
sion, he had been at work since the morning, all the ingredi- 
ents for the dinner were in their natural state — of course, 
washed and peeled, but nothing more. He was assisted by 
his own cook and a kitchen-maid, but he himself, with his 



48 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

sleeves rolled up to the elbows, a large apron round liis waist, 
and bare chest, conducted the operations. I do not think I 
have ever seen am^thing more entertaining, though in the 
course of these notes I shall have to mention frequent vaga- 
ries on the part of great men. I came to the conclusion that 
when writers insisted upon the culinary challenges of Ca- 
reme, Duglere, and Casimir they were not indulging in mere 
metaphor. 

At half -past six the guests began to arrive ; at a quarter 
to seven Dumas retired to his dressing-room ; at seven punct- 
nally the servant announced that " monsieur etait servi," 
The dinner consisted of the aforenamed soupe aux choux, 
the carp that had led to the invitation, a ragout de mouton 
a la Hongroise, roti de faisans, and a salade Japonaise. The 
sweets and ices had been sent by the j)atissier. I never dined 
like that before or after, not even a week later, wlien Dr. 
Veron and Sophie made the amende honorable in the Eue 
Taitbout. 

I have spent many delightful evenings with all these 
men; I do not remember having spent a more delightful one 
than ' on the latter occasion. Every one was in the best of 
humours ; the dinner was very fine ; albeit that, course for 
course, it did not come up to Dumas' ; and, moreover, dur- 
ing the week that had elapsed between the two entertain- 
ments, one of Dr. Veron's successors at the opera, Leon 
Pillet, had been served with the most ludicrous citation that 
was ever entered on the rolls of any tribunal. For nearly 
nineteen years before that period there had been several at- 
tempts to mount Weber's " Freyschutz," all of which had 
come to nought. There had been an adaptation by Castil- 
Blaze, under the title of " Robin des Bois," and several others ; 
but until '41, Weber's work, even in a mutilated state, was 
not known to the French opera-goer. At that time, however, 
M. Emilien Paccini made a very good translation ; Hector 
Berlioz was commissioned to write the recitatives, for it must 
be remembered that Weber's opera contains dialogue, and 
that dialogue is not admissible in grand opera. Berlioz 
acquitted himself wdth a taste and reverence for the com- 
poser's original scheme that did great credit to both ; he 
sought his themes in Weber's work itself, notably in the 
" Invitation a la Valse : " but notwithstanding all this, the 
" Freyschutz " was miserably amputated in the performance 
lest it should " play " longer than midnight, though a ballet 



A MUSICAL LAW-SUIT. 49 

was added rather than deprive the public of its so-called due. 
Neither Paccini nor Berlioz had set foot in the opera-house 
since their objections to such a course had been overruled, 
and they made it known to the world at large that no blame 
attached to them ; nevertheless, this quasi " Freyschutz " met 
with a certain amount of success. M. Pillet was rubbing his 
hands with glee at his own cleverness, until a Nemesis came 
in the shape of a visitor from the Fatherland, who took the 
conceit out of the director with one fell blow, and, what was 
worse still, with a perfectly legal one. 

The visitor was no less a personage than Count Tyszkie- 
wicz, one of the best musical critics of the time and the edi- 
tor of the foremost musical publication in the world ; namely, 
Die Musihalische Zeitung^ of Leipzig. The count, having 
been attracted by the announcement of the opera on the bills, 
was naturally anxious to hear how French artists would acquit 
themselves of a work particularly German, and, having se- 
cured a stall, anticipated an enjoyable evening. But alack 
and alas ! in a very little while his indignation at the liber- 
ties taken with the text and the score by the singers, musi- 
cians, and conductor got the upper hand, and he rushed off 
to the commissary of police on duty at the theatre to claim 
the execution of Weber's opera in its integrity, as promised 
on the bills, or the restitution of his money. Failing to get 
satisfaction either way, he required the commissary to draw 
up a verbatim report of his objections and his claim, deter- 
mined to bring an action. Next morning, he sent a litho- 
graphed account of the transaction to all the papers, re- 
questing its insertion, with which request not a single one 
complied. Finding himself baffled at every turn, he engaged 
lawyer and counsel and began proceedings. 

It was at that stage of the alfair that the dinner at Dr. 
Yeron's took place. As a matter of course, the coming law- 
suit gave rise to a great deal of chaff on the part of the 
guests, although the victim of this badinage and defendant 
in the suit was not there. It was his successor who took up 
the cudgels and predicted the plaintiff's discomfiture. " The 
counsel," said Roqueplan, " ought to be instructed to invite 
the president and assessors to come and hear the work before 
they deliver judgment : if they like it personally, they will 
not decide against Pillet ; if they don't, they'll fall asleep and 
be ashamed to own it afterwards. But should they give a 
verdict for the plaintiff, Pillet ought to appeal on a question 
5 



50 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

of incompetence ; a person with the name of Tyszkiewicz has 
no right to plead in the interest of harmon3^" * 

Among such a company as that gathered round Dr. 
Veron's table, a single sentence frequently led to a host of 
recollections. Scarcely had Roqueplan's suggestion to invite 
the president and assessors of the court to the performance 
of the " Freyschutz " been broached than our host chimed 
in : "I can tell you a story where the expedient you recom- 
mend was really resorted to, though it did not emanate from 
half as clever a man as you, Koqueplan. In fact, it was only 
a pompier that hit upon it to get out of a terrible scrape. 
He was going to be brought before a court-martial for neglect 
of duty. It happened under the management of my imme- 
diate successor, IJuponchel, at the fourth or fifth perform- 
ance of Halevy's ' Guido et Genevra.' Some of the scenery 
caught fire, and, but for Duponchel's presence of mind, there 
would have been a panic and a horrible catastrophe. Never- 
theless, the cause of the accident had to be ascertained, and 
it was found that the brigadier fireman posted at the spot 
where the mischief began had been asleep. He frankly ad- 
mitted his fault, at the same time pleading extenuating cir- 
cumstances. ' What do you mean ? ' asked the captain, 
charged with the report. ' Such a thing has never happened 
to me before, mon capitaine, but it is impossible for any one 
to keep his eyes open during that act. You need not take 
my word, but perhaps you will try the effect yourself.' The 
captain did try; the captain sat for two or three minutes 
after the rise of the curtain, then he was seen to leave his 
place hurriedly. The brigadier and his men were severely 
reprimanded, but they were not tried. Out of respect for 
Halevy the matter was kept a secret. 

" I may add," said our host, " that the pompier is by no 
means a bad judge of things theatrical, seeing that he is rarely 
away from the stage for more than three or four nights at a 
time. I remember perfectly well that, during the rehearsals 
of ' Robert le Diable,' Meyerbeer often had a chat with them. 
Curiously enough he now and then made little alterations 

* The latter plea was, in fact, advanced by Fillet's counsel in the first in- 
stance, on Roqueplan's advice, and perhaps iniiuenced the court ; for though it 
gave a verdict tbr the plamtiti', it was only for seven francs (the price of the 
stall), and costs. The verdict was based upon the ''consideration" that the 
defendant had not carried out altogether the promise set forth on the pro- 
gramme. 



DUMAS AT REST. 51 

after these conversations. I am not insinuating that the 
great composer acted upon their suggestions, but I should 
not at all wonder if he had done so." 

Alexandre Dumas, in whose honour, it will be remem- 
bered, the dinner was given, had an excellent memory, and 
some years afterwards profited by the experiment. I tell the 
story as it was given to us subsequently by his son. Only a 
few friends and Alexandre the younger were present at the 
first of the final rehearsals of *' The Three Musketeers," at 
the Ambigu Comique. They were not dress rehearsals proper, 
because there were no costumes, and the scenery merely con- 
sisted of a cloth and some wings. Behind one of the latter 
they had noticed, during the first six tableaux, the shining 
helmet of a fireman who was listening very attentively. The 
author had noticed him too. About the middle of the seventh 
tableau the helmet suddenly vanished, and the father remarked 
upon it to his son. When the act was finished, Dumas went 
in search of the pompier, who did not kuow him. " What 
made you go away?" he asked him. "Because it did not 
amuse me half as much as the others," was the answer. 
" That was enough for my father," said the younger Dumas. 
" There and then he went to Beraud's room, took off his coat, 
waistcoat, and braces, unfastened the collar of his shirt — it 
was the only way he could work — and sent for the prompt 
copy of the seventh tableau, w^iich he tore up and flung into 
the fire, to the consternation of Beraud. ' What are you do- 
ing?' he exclaimed. 'You see what I am doing; I am de- 
stroying the seventh tableau. It does not amuse the pom- 
pier. I know what it wants.' And an hour and a half later, 
at the termination of the rehearsal, the actors were given a 
fresh seventh tableau to study." 

I have come back by a roundabout w^ay to the author of 
" Monte-Christo," because, tout chemin avec moi mene a 
Dumas ; I repeat, he constitutes ono of the happiest of my 
recollections. After the lapse of many years, I willingly ad- 
mit that I would have cheerfully foregone the acquaintance 
of all the other celebrities, perhaps David d'Angers excepted, 
for that of Dumas pere. 

After the lapse of many years, the elder Dumas still repre- 
sents to me all the good qualities of the French nation and 
few of their bad ones. It was absolutely impossible to be 
dull in his society, but it must not be thought that these con- 
tagious animal spirits only showed themselves periodically or 



52 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

when in company. It was what the French have so aptly 
termed " la joie de vivre," albeit that they rarely associate 
the phrase with any one not in the spring of life. With 
Dumas it was chronic until a very few months before his 
death. I remember calling upon him shortly after the din- 
ner of which 1 spoke just now. He had taken up his quar- 
ters at Saint-Germain, and come to Paris only for a few days. 
*' Is monsieur at home ? " I said to the servant. 

" He is in his study, monsieur," was the answer. " Mon- 
sieur can go in." 

At that moment I heard a loud burst of laughter from 
the inner apartment, so I said, " I would sooner wait until 
monsieur's visitors are gone." 

" Monsieur has no visitors ; he is working," remarked the 
servant with a smile. " Monsieur Dumas often laughs like 
this at his work." 

It was true enough, the novelist was alone, or rather in 
company with one of his characters, at whose sallies he was 
simply roaring. 

Work, in fact, was a pleasure to him, like everything else 
he undertook. One day he had been out shooting, between 
Villers-Cotterets and Compiegne, since six in the morning, 
and had killed twenty-nine birds. " I am going to make up 
the score and a half, and then I'll have a sleep, for I feel 
tired," he said. When he had killed his thirtieth partridge 
he slowly walked back to the farm, where his son and friends 
found him about four hours later, toasting himself before the 
fire, his feet on the andirons, and twirling his thumbs. 

"What are you sitting there for like that?" asked his 
son. 

" Can't you see? I am resting." 

" Did you get your sleep ? '' 

" No, I didn't; it's impossible to sleep here. There is an 
infernal noise ; what with the sheep, the cows, the pigs, and 
the rest, there is no chance of getting a wink." 

_ " So you have been sitting here for the last four hours, 
twirling your thumbs ? " 

" No, I have been writing a piece in one act." The piece 
in question was " Eomulus," which he gave to Eegnier to 
have it read at the Oomedie-Fran9aise, under a pseudonym, 
and as the work of a young unknown author. It was accept- 
ed without a dissentient vote. 

It is a well-known fact, vouched for by the accounts of 



DUMAS AS A CENTRE OF ATTRACTION. 53 

the Compagnie clu Chemin cle Fer de TOiiest, that during 
the three years Dumas lived at Saint- Germain, the receipts 
increased by twenty thousand francs per annum. Of course, 
it has been objected that railways being then in their infancy 
the increment would have been just the same without Dumas' 
presence in the royal residence, but, curiously enough, from 
the day he left, the passenger traffic fell to its previous state. 
Dumas had simply galvanized the sleepy old town into life, 
he had bought the theatre where the artists of the Comedie- 
Frangaise, previous to supping with him, came to play 
" Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle " or the " Demoiselles de Saint- 
Cyr," for the benefit of the poor. On such occasions, there 
was not a room to be had at the hotels. After supper, there 
were twice a week fireworks on the Terrace, which could be 
seen from Paris and from Versailles, to the great astonish- 
ment of Louis- Philippe, who really attributed the change to 
the beneficence of his reign, although he failed to account 
for the continued dulness of the latter royal borough, where 
he himself resided, and whose picture-galleries he had restored 
and thrown open to the public, besides having the great fount- 
ains to play every first Sunday of the month. 

One day the king sent for M. de Montalivet, and told 
him that, though gratified at the revived prosperity of 
Saint- Germain, he would like to see a little more gaiety at 
Versailles. 

" You really mean it, sire? " asked the minister. 

" Not only do I mean it, but I confess to you that it 
would give me great pleasure." 

" Well, sire, Alexandre Dumas has lately been sentenced 
to a fortnight's imprisonment for neglecting his duty in the 
National Guards : make an order for him to spend that fort- 
night in Versailles, and I guarantee your Majesty that A^er- 
sailles will be lively enough." 

Louis-Philippe did not act upon the suggestion. The 
only member of the d' Orleans' family who was truly sympa- 
thetic to Dumas was the king's eldest son, whose untimely 
death shortly afterwards affected the great novelist very 
much, albeit that he frankly acknowledged to regretting the 
man and not the future ruler; for while loudly professing 
his republican creed, he never pretended to overlook his in- 
debtedness to Louis-Philippe, when Due d'Orleans, for hav- 
ing befriended him ; nay, I am inclined to think that Dumas' 
gratitude was far greater than the case warranted. AVhen, in 



54 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

1847, the fancy took him to go into parliament, he naturally 
turned to the borough he had benefited so much by his stay 
there — Saint- Germain, and Saint- Germain denied him. 
They thought him too immoral. Dumas waited patiently 
for another opportunity, which did not come until the 
following year, when Louis-Philippe had abdicated. Ad- 
dressing a meeting of electors at Joigny, he was chal- 
lenged by a M. de Bonneliere to reconcile his title of re- 
publican with his title of Marquis de la Pailleterie, and the 
fact of his having been a secretary to the Due d'Orleans, 
although he had never occupied so important a position in 
the Due d'Orleans' household. His reply was simply scath- 
ing, and I give it in full as the papers of the day reproduced 
it. '' No doubt," he said, in an off-hand, bantering way, " I 
was formerly called the Marquis de la Pailleterie, which was 
my father's name, and of which I was very proud, being 
unable then to claim a glorious one of my own make. But 
at present, when I am somebody, I call myself Alexandre 
Dumas and nothing more; and everybody knows me, you 
among the rest — yon, you absolute nobody, who have merely 
come to be able to boast to-morrow, after insulting me to- 
night, that you have known the great Dumas. If such was 
your ambition, you might have satisfied it without failing in 
the common courtesies of a gentleman." 

When the applause which the reply provoked had sub- 
sided, Dumas went on : " There is also no doubt about my 
having been a secretary to the Due d'Orleans, and that I 
have received all kinds of favours from his family. If you, 
citizen, are ignorant of the meaning of the term, ' the mem- 
ory of the heart,' allow me at least to proclaim here in my 
loudest voice, that I am not, and that I entertain towards 
this royal family all the devotion an honourable man can 
feel." 

It is, however, not my intention to sketch Alexandre 
Dumas as a politician, for which career I considered him 
singularly unfit ; but the speech from which I extracted the 
foregoing contains a few lines which, more than thirty-five 
years after they were spoken, cannot fail to strike the reader 
with his marvellous foresight. " Geographically," he said, 
commenting upon the political state of Europe, " Prussia 
has the form of a serpent, and, like it, she seems to be asleep, 
and to gather her strength in order to swallow everything 
around her — Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and, when she 



DUMAS AS A POLITICIAN. 55 

shall have swallowed all that, 3^011 will find that Austria 
will be swallowed in its turn, and perhaps, alas, France 
also." 

The last .words, as may be imagined, provoked a storm of 
hisses ; nevertheless, he kept his audience spellbound until 
midnight. 

A parliamentary candidate, however eloquent, who flings 
his constituents into the river when they happen to annoy 
him, must have been a novelty even in those days, and that 
is what Dumas did to two brawlers after said meeting, just 
to show them that his " aristocratic grip " was worth their 
" plebeian one." 

A few years later, at a dinner at Dumas', in the Rue 
d'Amsterdam, I met a Monsieur du Chatfault who had been 
an eye-witness of this, as well as of other scenes during that 
memorable day. Until the morning of that day, M. du 
Chaffault had never set eyes on the great novelist ; in the 
evening, he was his friend for life. It only proves once more 
the irresistible fascination Dumas exercised over every one 
with whom he came in contact, because the beginning of that 
friendship cost M. du Chaifault six hundred francs, the ex- 
penses of that part of the electoral campaign. The story, as 
told by M. du Chaffault tlie following afternoon in the Cafe 
Riche to Dr. Veron, myself, and Joseph Mery, is too good to 
be missed. I give it as near as I can remember. 

" I was about twenty- four then, with nothing particular to 
do, and a moderate private income. They were painting and 
whitewashing my place, a few miles away from Sens, and I 
had taken up my quarters in the principal hotel in the town. 
The first elections under the second republic were being 
held. There was a good deal of excitement everywhere, and 
I liked it, though not taking the slightest interest in politics. 
This was in May, 18i8; and about six, one morning while I 
was still in bed, the door of my room was suddenly opened 
without knocking, and what seemed to me a big black 
monster stood before me. There was a pistol lying by the 
side of me, and I was reaching towards it, when he spoke. 
' Don't alarm yourself,' he said ; ' I am Alexandre Dumas 
They told me you were a good fellow, and I have come to 
ask you a service.' 

" I had never seen Dumas in the flesh, only a portrait of 
him, but I recognized him immediately. ' You have often 
afforded me a great deal of amusement, but I confess you 



56 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

frightened me,' I said. * What, in Heaven's name, do you 
want at this unholy hour ? ' 

" ' I have slept here,' was the answer. ' I landed here at 
midnight, and am starting for Joigny by-and-by, to attend a 
political meeting. I am putting up as a member for your 
department.' 

I jumped out of bed at once, Dumas handed me my 
trousers, and, when I got as far as my boots, he says, ' Oh, 
while I think of it, I have come to ask you for a pair of 
boots ; in stepping into the carriage, one of mine has come 
to utter grief, and there is no shop open.' 

" As yoLi may see for yourselves, I am by no means a 
giant, and Dumas is one. I pointed this out to him, but he 
did not even answer me. He had caught sight of three or 
four pair of boots under the dressing-table, and, in the 
twinkling of an eye, chose the best pair and pulled them on, 
leaving me his old ones, absolutely worn out, but which I 
have preserved in my library at home. I always show them 
to my visitors as the thousand and first volume of Alexandre 
Dumas.* 

" By the time he got the boots on we were friends, as if 
we had known one another for years ; as for Dumas, he was 
* theeing ' and ' thouing ' me as if we had been at school to- 
gether. 

"'You are going to Joigny?' I said; 'I know a good 
many people there.' 

" ' All the better, for I am going to take you along with 
me.' 

" Having to go no further than Joigny, and being taken 
thither in the conveyance of my newly-made friend, I did 
not think it necessary to provide myself with an extra supply 
of funds, the more that I had between five and six hundred 
francs in my pocket. In a short time we were on our road, 
and the first stage of three hours seemed to me as many min- 
utes. Whenever we passed a country seat, out came a lot of 
anecdotes and legends connected with its owners, interlarded 
with quaint -fancies and epigrams. At that first change of 
horses Dumas' secretary paid. At the second, Villevailles, 
Dumas says, ' Have you got twenty francs change ? ' AVith- 
out a moment's hesitation, I took out my purse, paid the 
money, and put down in my pocket-book, ' Alexandre Dumas, 

* Alexandre Dumas had a marvellously small foot. — Editor. 



DUMAS' IMPECUNIOSITY. 57 

twenty francs.' I might have saved myself the tronble, as I 
found out in a very short time, for the moment he got out at 
Joigny, he rushed off in a hurry without troubling about any- 
thing. The postilion turned to me for his money, and I paid, 
and put down once more, ' Alexandre Dumas, thirty francs.' 

" The first meeting was fixed for four, at the theatre. 
They applied to me for the hire of the building, for the gas. 
I went on paying, but I no longer put down the items, saying 
to myself, ' When my six hundred francs are gone, my little 
excursion will be at an end, and I'll go back to Sens.' The 
little excursion did not extend to more than one day, seeing 
that 1 had to settle the dinner bill at the Due de Bourgogne, 
Dumas having invited every one he met on his way. I am 
only sorry for one thing, that I did not have ten thousand 
francs in my pocket that morning in order to prolong my 
excursion for a week or so. But next morning my purse was 
empty, and ' our defeat was certain.' I had already identified 
myself with Dumas' aspirations, so I returned to Sens by 
myself, but overjoyed at having seen and spoken to this man 
of genius, who is richer than all the millionnaires in the 
world put together, seeing that he never troubles himself 
about paying, and has therefore no need to worry about 
money. Three months afterwards, the printer at Joigny 
drew upon me for a hundred francs for electioneering bills, 
which, of course, I could not have ordered, but which draft I 
settled as joyfully as I had settled the rest. I have preserved 
the draft with the boots ; they are mementoes of my first two 
days' friendship Avith my dear friend." 

At the first blush, all this sounds very much as if we were 
dealing with a mere Harold Skimpole, but no man was more 
unlike Dickens' creation than Alexandre Dumas. M. du 
Chaffault described hijn rightly when he said that he did 
not worry about money, not even his own. " My biog- 
rapher," Dumas often said, " will not fail to point out that 
I was ' a panier perce,' * neglecting, as a matter of course, 
to mention that, as a rule, it was not I who made the holes." 

The biographers have not been quite so unjust as that. 
IJnfortunately, few of them knew Dumas intimately, and 
they were so intent upon sketching the playwright and the 
novelist that they neglected the man. They could have had 

* Literally, a basket with holes in it; figuratively, the term applied to in-e- 
claimable spendthrifts.— Editor. 



58 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

tlie stories of Alexandre Dumas' improvidence with regard 
to himself and his generosity to others for the asking from 
his familiars. On the other hand, the latter have only told 
these stories in a fragmentary way ; a complete collection of 
them would be impossible, for no one, not even Dumas him- 
self, knew half the people whom he befriended. In that 
very apartment of the Rue d' Amsterdam which I mentioned 
just now, the board was free to any and every one who chose 
to come in. Not once, but a score of times, have I heard 
Dumas ask, after this or that man had left the table, " Who 
is he ? what's his name ? " Whosoever came with, or at the 
tail, not of a friend, but of a simple acquaintance, especially 
if the acquaintance happened to wear skirts, was immediately 
invited to breakfast or dinnei as the case might be. Count 
de Cherville once told me that Dumas, having taken a house 
at Varenne-Saint-Hilaire, his second month's bill for meat 
alone amounted to eleven hundred francs. Let it be remem- 
bered that his household consisted of himself, two secre- 
taries, and three servants, and that money went a great deal 
further than it does at present, especially in provincial France, 
in some parts of which living is still very cheap. In conse- 
quence of one of those financial crises, which were absolutely 
periodical with Alexandre Dumas, M. de Cherville had pre- 
vailed upon him to leave Paris for a while, and to take up 
his quarters with him. All went comparatively well as long 
as he was M. de Cherville's guest ; but, having taken a liking 
to the neighbourhood, he rented a house of his own, and 
furnished it from garret to cellar in the most expensive way, 
as if he were going to spend the remainder of his life in it. 
Exclusive of the furniture, he spent between fifteen thou- 
sand and eighteen thousand francs on hangings, painting, 
and repairs. The parasites and hai;pies which M. de Cher- 
ville had kept at bay came down upon him like a swarm of 
locusts. " And how long, think you, did Dumas stay in his 
new domicile ? Three months, not a day more nor less. As 
a matter of course, the furniture did not fetch a quarter of 
its cost ; the repairs, the decorating, etc., were so much sheer 
waste : for the incoming tenant refused to refund a cent for 
it, and Dumas, having made up his mind to go to Italy, 
would not wait for a more liberal or conscientious one, lest 
he should have the rent of the empty house on his shoulders 
also. Luckily, I took care that he should pocket the pro- 
ceeds of the sale of the furniture." 



DUMAS AND THE BAILIFFS. 59 

This last sentence wants explaining. As a rule, when a 
man sells his sticks, he pockets the money. But the in- 
stance just mentioned was the only one in which Dumas had 
the disposal of his household goods. The presiding divinity 
invariably carried them away with her when she had. to make 
room for a successor, and these successions generally oc- 
curred once, sometimes twice, a year. '• La reine est morte, 
vive la reine." The new sovereign, for the first few days of 
her reign, had to be content with bare walls and very few 
material comforts ; then the nest was upholstered afresh, and 
" il n'y avait rien de change, en la demeure, sauf le nom de 
la maitresse." 

Consequently, though for forty years Alexandre J)umas 
could not have earned less than eight thousand pounds per 
annum ; though he neither smoked, drank, nor gambled ; 
though, in spite of his mania for cooking, he himself was the 
most frugal eater — the beef from the soup of the previous 
day, grilled, was his favourite dish, — it rained writs and sum- 
monses around him, while he himself was frequently without 
a penny. 

M. du Chaffault one day told me of a scene a apropos of 
this which is worth reproducing. He was chatting to Dumas 
in his study, when a visitor was shown in. He turned out 
to be an Italian man of letters and refugee, on the verge of 
starvation. M. du Chaffault could not well make out what 
was said, because they were talking Italian, but all at once 
Dumas got up and took from the wall behind him a mag- 
nificent pistol, one of a pair. The visitor walked off with it, 
to M. du Chaffault's surprise. When he was gone, Dumas 
turned to his friend and explained : " He was utterly penni- 
less, and so am I ; so I gave him the pistol." 

" Great Heavens, you surely did not recommend him to 
go and make an end of himself ! " interrupted du Chaf- 
fault. 

Dumas burst out laughing. " Of course not. I merely 
told him to go and sell or pawn it, and leave me the fellow 
one, in case some other poor wretch should want assistance 
while I am so terribly hard up." 

And yet, in this very Rue d'Amsterdam, whether Dumas 
was terribly impecunious or not, the dejeuner, which gen- 
erally began at about half-past eleven, was rarely finished 
before half-past four, because during the whole of that time 
fresh contingents arrived to be fed, and communication was 



60 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

kept up between the apartment and the butcher for corre- 
sponding fresh supplies of beefsteaks and cutlets. 

Is it a wonder, then, that it rained summonses, and writs, 
and other law documents ? But no one took much notice 
of these, not even one of the four secretaries, who w^as spe- 
cially appointed to look after these things. If I remember 
aright, his name was Hirschler. The names of the other 
three secretaries were Eusconi, Viellot, and Fontaine. Un- 
fortunately, Hirschler was as dilatory as his master, and, 
until the process-server claimed a personal interview, as in- 
different. These "limbs of the law" were marvellously 
polite. I was present one day at an interview between one 
of these and Hirschler, for Dumas' dwelling was absolutely 
and literally the glass house of the ancient philosopher — 
with this difference, that no one threw any stones from it. 
There was no secret, no skeleton in the cupboard ; the im- 
pecuniosity and the recurrent periods of plenty were both as 
open as the day. 

The " man of law " and Hirschler began by shaking 
hands, for they were old acquaintances ; it would have been 
difficult to find a process-server in Paris who was not an old 
acquaintance of Dumas. After which the visitor informed 
Hirschler that he had come to distrain. 

'• To distrain ? I did not know we had got as far as that," 
said Hirschler. " Wait a moment. I must go and see." It 
meant that Hirschler repaired to the kitchen, where stood a 
large oaken sideboard, in a capacious drawer of which all the 
law documents, no matter by whom received, were indiscrimi- 
nately thrown, to be fished out when the " mauvais quart 
d'heure " came, and not until then. 

" You are right," said Hirschler, but not in the least wor- 
ried or excited " I really did not know we had got as far as 
that. I must ask you to wait another minute. I suppose a 
third or a fourth of the total amount will do for the pres- 
ent ? " 

" "Well, T do not know," said the process-server with most 
exquisite politeness. '• Try what you can do. I fancy that 
with a third I may manage to stop proceedings for a while." 

The third or fourth part of the debt was rarely in the 
house ; messengers had to be despatched for it to Cadot, the 
publisher, or to the cashier of the lloniteur, Constitutionnel^ 
or Steele. Meanwhile the process-server was feasted in a 
sumptuous way, and when the messenger returned with the 



THE TWO DLTMASES. 61 

sum in question, Hirschler and the process-server shook hands 
once more, with the most cordial cm revoir possible. 

As a matter of course, the same process-server reappeared 
upon the scene in a few months. The comedy had often as 
many as a dozen representations, so that it may safely be said 
that a great number of Dumas' debts were paid six or seven 
times over. Even sixpence a line of sixty letters did not suf- 
fice to keep pace with such terrible improvidence, though the 
remuneration was much more frequently fourpence or five- 
pence. It rarely rose to sevenpence half^jenny, but in all 
cases a third went to Dumas' collaborateurs, another third to 
his creditors, and the rest to himself. 

I have allowed my pen to run aw^ay with me. One more 
story, and then I leave Alexandre Dumas for the present. It 
is simply to show that he would have squandered the fortune 
of all the Rothschilds combined : I repeat, not on himself ; 
he would have given it away, or allowed it to be taken. He 
had no notion of the value of money. About a year after I 
had made his acquaintance, he was ill at Saint-Germain, and 
I went to see him. His dog had bitten him severely in the 
right hand ; he was in bed, and obliged to dictate. His son 
had just left him, and he told me, adding, " C'est un cceur 
d'or, cet' Alexandre." Seeing that I did not ask what had 
elicited the praise, he began telling me. 

" This morning I received six hundred and fifty francs. 
Just now Alexandre was going up to Paris, and he says, ' I'll 
take fifty francs.' 

" I did not pay attention, or must have misunderstood ; 
at any rate I replied, ' Don't take as much as that ; leave me 
a hundred francs.' 

" ' AVhat do you mean, father ? ' he asked. ' I am telling 
you that I am going to take fifty francs.' 

" ' I beg your pardon,' I said. ' I understood you were 
goina: to take six hundred.' " 

He would have considered it the most natural thing in the 
world for his son to take six hundred and leave him fifty ; 
just as he considered it the most natural thing to bare his arm 
and to have a dozen leeches put on it, because his son, wdien 
a boy of eight, having met with an accident, would not con- 
sent to blood-letting of that kind. In vain did the father tell 
him that the leeches did not hurt. " Well, put some on your- 
self, and then I will." And the giant turned up his sleeves, 
and did as he was told. 



62 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Dr. Louis Veron — The real man as distinguished from that of his own " Mem- 
oirs" — He takes the management of the Paris Opera — How it was gov- 
erned before his advent — Meyeroeer's " Eobert le Diable" xinderlined — 
Meyerbeer and his doubts upon the merits of his wol-k — Meyerbeer's gen- 
erosity — Meyerbeer and the beggars of tlie Rue Le Peletier — Dr. Veron, 
the inventor of the modern newspaper putT— Some specimens of advertise- 
ments in their infancy — Dr. Veron takes a leaf from the book of Moliere — 
Dr. Veron's love of money — His superstitions — His objections to travelling 
in railways — He quotes the Queen of England as an example — When 
Queen Victoria overcomes her objection, Veron holds out—"' Queen Vic- 
toria has got a successor: the Veron dynasty begins and ends with me" 
— Thirteen at table — I make the acquaintance of Taglioni — The woman 
and the ballerina — Her adventure at Perth — An improvised performance 
of '"• Nathalie, la Laitiere Suisse " — Another adventure in Russia — A modern 
Claude Du-Val — My last meeting with Taglioni — A dinner-party at De 
Morny's — A comedy scene between husband and wife — Flotow, the com- 
poser of "Martha" — His family — His father's objection to the composers 
profession — The latter's interview with M. de Saint-Georges, the author of 
the libretto of Balfe's " Bohemian Girl " — M. de Saint-Georges prevails 
upon the father to let his son study in Paris for live years, and to provide 
for him during that time — The supplies are stopped on the last day of the 
fifth year— Flotow, at the advice of M. de Saint-Georges, stays on and lives 
by giving piano-lessons — His earthly possessions at his first success — "Rob 
Roy" at the Hotel Castellane — Lord Granville's opinion of the music — 
The Hotel Castellane and some Paris salons during Louis-Philippe's reign 
— The Princesse de Lieven's, M. Thiers', etc. — What Madame de^Girardin's 
was like — Victor Hugo's — Perpetual adoration ; very artistic, but nothing 
to eat or to drink — The salon of the ambassador of the Two Sicilies — Lord 
and Lady Granville at the English Embassy— The salon of Count x\pponyi 
— A story connected with it — Furniture and entertainments — Cakes, ices, 
and tea; no champagne as during the Second Empire — Tlie Hotel Castel- 
lane and its amateur theatricals — Rival companies — No under-studies — 
Lord Brougliam at the Hotel Castellane— His bad French and liis would- 
be Don Juanism— A French rendering of Shakespeare's " There is but one 
step between the sublime and the ridiculous," as applied to Lord Brougham 
— lie nearly accepts a part in a farce where his bad French is likely to pro- 
duce a comic efteet — His successor as a murderer of the language — M. de 
Saint-Georges — Like Moliere, he reads his plays to his housekeeper — When 
the latter is not satisfied, the dinner is spoilt, however great the success of 
the play in public estimation — Great men and their housekeepers — Turner, 
Jean Jacques Rousseau, Eugene Delacroix. 

Next to Dnmas, the man who is uppermost in my recol- 
lections of that period is Dr. Louis Veron, the founder of the 
Revue de Paris^ which was the precursor of the Revue des 



DR. VfiRON". 63 

Deux Mondes ; Dr Veron, under whose management the 
Paris Opera rose to a degree of perfection it has never at- 
tained since ; Dr. Veron, who, as some one said, was as much 
part and parcel of the history of Paris during the first half 
of the nineteenth century as was Xapoleon I. of the history 
of France ; Dr. Veron, than Avhom there has been no more 
original figure in any civilized community before or since, 
with the exception, perhaps, of Phineas Barnum, to whom, 
however, he was infinitely superior in education, tact, and 
manners. 

Dr. Veron has written his own " Memoirs " in six bulky 
volumes, to which he added a seventh a few years later. 
They are full of interesting facts from beginning to end, 
especially to those who did not know intimately the author 
or the times of which he treats. Those who did are tempted 
to repeat the mot of Diderot when they gave him the portrait 
of his father. " This is my Sunday father ; I want my every- 
day father." The painter, in fact, had represented the worthy 
cutler of Langres in his best coat and wig, etc. ; not as his 
son had been in the habit of seeing him. The Dr. Veron of 
the " Memoirs " is not the Dr. Veron of the Cafe de Paris, 
nor the Dr. Veron of the avant-schie in his own theatre, snor- 
ing a duet with Auber, and " keeping better time than the 
great comjDoser himself ; " he is not the Dr. Veron full of fads 
and superstitions and uniformly kind, " because kindness is 
as a rule a capital investment ; " he is not the cheerful pessi- 
mist we knew ; he is a grumbling optimist, as the journalists 
of his time have painted him ; in short, in his book he is a 
quasi-philanthropic illusion, while in reality he was a hard- 
hearted, shrewd business man who did good by stealth now 
and then, but never blushed to find it fame. 

The event which proved the starting-jDoint of Dr. Veron's 
celebrity was neither of his own making nor of his own seek- 
ing. Though it happened when I was a mere lad, I have 
heard it discussed in after-years suflficiently often and by very 
good authorities to be confident of my facts. In June, 1831, 
Dr. Veron took the management of the Paris Opera, which 
up till then had been governed on the style of the old regime, 
namely, by three gentlemen of the king's household with a 
working director under them. The royal privy purse was 
virtually responsible for its liabilities. Louis-Philippe shift- 
ed the burden of that responsibility on the State, and 
limited its extent. The three gentlemen of the king's house- 



64: AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

hold were replaced by a royal commissioner, and the yearly 
subsidy fixed at £32,500 ; still a pretty round sum, which has 
been reduced since by £500 only. 

At Dr. Veron's advent, Meyerbeer's " Robert le Diable " 
was, what they call in theatrical parlance, " underlined," or, 
if not underlined, at least definitely accepted. Only one 
work of his had at that time been heard in Paris, " II Crociato 
in Egitto." 

It is difficult to determine, after so many years, whether 
Dr. Veron, notwithstanding his artistic instincts, was greatly 
smitten with the G-erman composer's masterpiece. It has 
often been argued that he was not, because he insisted upon 
an indemnity of forty thousand francs from the Grovernment 
towards the cost of its production. In the case of a man like 
Veron, this proves nothing at all. He may have been 
thoroughly convinced of the merits of " Eobert le Diable," 
and as thoroughly confident of its success with the public, 
though no manager, not even the most experienced, can be ; 
it would not have prevented him from squeezing the forty 
thousand francs from the minister on the plea that the per- 
formance of the work was imposed upon him by a treaty of 
his predecessor. To Dr. Veron's credit be it said that he 
might have saved himself the hard tussle he had with the 
minister by simply applying for the money to Meyerbeer 
himself, who would have given it without a moment's hesita- 
tion, rather than see the success of " Robert le Diable " jeop- 
ardized by inefficient mounting, although up to the last 
Meyerbeer could never make up his mind whether magnificent 
scenery and gorgeous dresses were an implied compliment or 
the reverse to the musical value of his compositions. A pro- 
pos of this there is a very characteristic story. At one of the 
final dress-rehearsals of " Robert le Diable," Mev^erbeer felt 
much upset. At the sight of that beautiful set of the cloister 
of Sainte-Rosalie, where the nuns rise from their tombs, at 
the effect produced by the weird procession, Meyerbeer came 
up to Veron. 

" My dear director," he said, " I perceive well enough that 
you do not depend upon the opera itself ; you are, in fact, 
running after a spectacular success." 

" Wait till the fourth act," replied Veron, who was above 
all logical. 

The curtain rose upon the fourth act, and what did Meyer- 
beer behold? Instead of the vast, grandiose apartment he 



MEYERBEER'S CHARITY. 65 

had conceived for Isabella, Princess of Sicily, he fonnd a 
mean, shabby set, which would have been deemed scarcely 
good enough for a minor theatre. 

" Decidedly, my dear director," said Meyerbeer, with a 
bitter twinge in his features and voice, " I perceive well 
enough that you have no faith in my score ; you did not even 
dare go to the expense of a new set. I would willingly have 
paid for it myself." 

And he would willingly have paid for it, because Meyer- 
beer was not only very rich, but very generous. 

" It is a very funny thing," said Lord , as he came 

into the Cafe de Paris one morning, many years afterwards ; 
" there are certain days in the week when the Rue Le Pele- 
tier seems to be swarming with beggars, and, what is funnier 
still, they don't take any notice of me. I pass absolutely 
scot-free." 

" I'll bet," remarked Roger de Beauvoir, " that they are 
playing ' Robert le Diable ' or ' Les Huguenots ' to-night, and 
I can assure you that I have not seen the bills." 

" Xow that you speak of it, they are playing ' Les Hugue- 
nots ' to-night," replied Lord ; " but what has that to do 

with it ? I am not aware that the Paris beggars manifest a 
particular predilection for Meyerbeer's operas, and that they 
are booking their places on the days they are performed." 

" It's simply this," explained De Beauvoir : " both Rossini 
and Meyerbeer never fail to come of a morning to look at the 
bills, and when the latter finds his name on them, he is so 
overjoyed that he absolutely empties his pockets of all the 
cash they contain. Notwithstanding his many years of suc- 
cess, he is still afraid that the public's liking for his music is 
merely a passing fancy, and as every additional performance 
decreases this apprehension, he thinks he cannot be suf^- 
ciently thankful to Providence. His gratitude shows itself 
in almso^ivinof." 

I made it my business subsequently to verify what I con- 
sidered De Beauvoir's fantastical statement, and I found it 
substantially correct. 

To return to Dr. Veron, who, there is no doubt, did the 
best he could for " Robert le Diable," to which and to the 
talent of Taglioni he owed his fortune. At the same time, it 
would be robbing him of part of his glory did we not state 
that the success of that great work might have been less sig- 
nal but for him ; both his predecessors and successors had 
6 



66 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

and have still equally good chances without having availed 
themselves of them, either in the interest of lyrical art or in 
that of the public. 

I compared Dr. Veron just now to Phineas Barnum, and 
the comparison was not made at random. Dr. Veron was 
really the inventor of the newspaper jmif direct and indirect 
■ — of that personal journalism which records the slightest 
deed or gesture of the popular theatrical manager, and Avhich 
at the present day is carried to excess. And all his subor- 
dinates and co-workers were made to share the advantages of 
the system, because their slightest doings also reflected glory 
upon him. An artist filling at a moment's notice the part of 
a fellow-artist who had become suddenly ill, a carpenter sav- 
ing by his presence of mind the situation at a critical junct- 
ure, had not only his paragraph in next morning's papers, 
but a whole column, containing the salient facts of his life 
and career. It was the system of Frederick the Great and of 
the first Napoleon, acknowledging the daring deeds of their 
smallest as well as of their foremost aids — with this differ- 
ence, that the French captain found it convenient to sup- 
press them now and then, and that Dr. Veron never at- 
tempted to do so. When the idea of putting down these 
notes first entered my mind, I looked over some files of news- 
papers of that particular period, and there was scarcely one 
between 1831 and 1835 that did not contain a lengthy refer- 
ence to the Grand Opera and its director. I was irresistibly 
reminded of the bulletins the great Napoleon dictated on the 
battle-field. I have also seen a collection of posters relating 
to the same brilliant reign at the Opera. Of course, com- 
pared to the eloquent effusions and ingenious attempts of the 
contemporary theatrical manager to bait the public, Veron's 
are mere child's play ; still we must remember that the art of 
puffing was in its infancy, and, as such, some of them are 
worth copying. The public was not so hlase, and it swallowed 
the bait eagerly. Here they are. 

" To-morrow tenth performance of ... , which hence- 
forth will only be played at rare intervals. 

" To-morrow twentieth pei-formance of ... ; positively 
the last before the departure of M. . . . 

" To-morrow seventeenth performance of ... ; reappear- 
ance of Madame . . . 

" To-morrow fifteenth performance of . . . by all the 
principal artists who ' created ' the parts. 



PRIMITIVE PUFFING. 07 

" To-morrow thirtieth performance of . . . The third 
scene of the second act will be played as on the first night. 

" To-morrow twentieth performance of ... , which can 
only be played for a limited number of nights. 

" To-morrow sixteenth performance of . . . In the Ball- 
Room Scene a new pas de Chales will be introduced. 

" To-morrow thirtieth performance of . . . This success- 
ful work must be momentarily suspended owing to previous 
arrangements." 

Childish as these lines may look to the present generation, 
they produced a fortune of £2000 a year to Dr. Veron in four 
years, and, but for the outbreak of the cholera in '32, when 
" Kobert le Diable " was in the Hush of its success, would have 
produced another £1000 per annum. At that time Dr. Veron 
had already been able to put aside £24,000, and he might 
have easily closed his theatre during those terrible months ; 
but, like Moliere, he asked himself what would become of all 
those who were dependent upon him, and had not put aside 
anything ; so he made his savings into ten parcels, intending 
to hold out as many months without asking help of any one„ 
Five of the parcels went. At the beginning of the sixth 
month the cholera abated; by the end it had almost dis- 
appeared. 

Those who Vv^ould infer from this that Dr. Veron was in- 
different to money, would make a great mistake. But he 
would not allow his love of it to get the upper hand, to come 
between him and his conscience, to make him commit either 
a dishonest or a foolish act. By a foolish act he meant head- 
long speculation. When the shares of the Northern Rail- 
way were allotted, Dr. Veron owned the Constitiitionnel ; 
150 shares were allotted to him, which at that moment repre- 
sented a clear profit of 60,000 francs, they being 400 francs 
above par. Dr. Veron made up his mind to realize there and 
then. But it was already late ; the Bourse was closed, the 
stockbrokers had finished business for the day. He, however, 
met one on the Boulevards, who gave him a cheque for 55,000 
francs on the Bank of France, which could only be cashed 
next day. The shares were left meanwhile in Dr. Veron's 
possession. Three minutes after the bargain was concluded 
Dr. Veron went back to his office. " I must have ready 
money for this, or decline the transaction," he said. The 
stocklDroker, by applying to two of his colleagues, managed 
to scrape together 50,000 francs. Dr. Veron gave him a 



68 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

receipt in full, returned home, singing as he went the French 
version of " A bird in the hand," etc. 

Veron was exceedingly superstitious, and had fads. He 
could never be induced to take a railway journey. It was 
generally known in France at that time that, in the early 
days of locomotion by steam, Queen Victoria had held a 
similar objection. Veron, when twitted with his objection, 
invariably replied, " I have yet to learn that the Queen of 
England is less enlightened than any of you, and she will 
not enter a railway carriage." But one day the report spread 
that the queen had made a journey from Windsor to London 
by the " iron horse," and then Veron was sorely pressed. He 
had his answer ready. " The Queen of England has got a 
successor : the Veron dynasty begins and ends with me. I 
must take care to make it last as long as possible." He stuck 
to his text till the end of his life. 

On no consideration would Veron have sat down " thirteen 
at table." Once or twice when the guests and host made up 
that number, his coachman's son was sent for, dressed, and 
made presentable, and joined the party ; at others he politely 
requested two or three of us to go and dine at the Cafe de 
Paris, and to have the bill sent to him. We drew lots as to 
who was to go. 

It was through Dr. Veron that I became acquainted with 
most of the operatic celebrities — Meyerbeer, Halevy, Auber, 
Duprez, etc. ; for though he had abdicated his directorship 
seven or eight years before we met, he was perhaps a greater 
power then in the lyrical world than at the date of his 
reign. 

It was at Dr. Veron's that I saw Mdlle. Taglioni for the 
first time — off the stage. It must have been in 1844, for she 
had not been in Paris since 1840, when I had seen her dance 
at the Opera. I had only seen her dance once before that, in 
'36 or '37, but I was altogether too young to judge then. I 
own that in 1840 I was somewhat disappointed, and my dis- 
appointment was shared by many, because some of my friends, 
to whom I communicated my impressions, told me that her 
three years' absence had made a vast difference in her art. 
In '44 it was still worse ; her performances gave rise to many 
a spiteful epigram, for she herself invited comparison between 
her former glory and her decline, by dancing in one of her 
most successful creations, " L'Ombre." Those most leniently 
disposed towards her thought what Alfred de Musset so 



TAGLIONA. (59 

gracefully expressed when requested to write some verses in 
her album. 

" Si vous ne voulez plus danser, 

Si vous ne faites que passer 

Sur ce grand theatre si sombre, 

Ne courez pas apres votre ombre 

Et tachez de nous la laisser." 

My disappointment with the ballerina was as nothing, 
however, to my disappointment with the woman. I had 
been able to determine for myself before then that Marie 
Taglioni was by no means a good-looking woman, but I did 
not exjDect her to be so plain as she was. That, after all, was 
not her fault ; but she might have tried to make amends for 
her lack of personal charms by her amiability. She rarely 
attempted to do so, and never with Frenchmen. Her recep- 
tion of them was freezing to a degree, and on the occasions — 
few and far between — when she thawed, it was \^ith Eussians, 
Englishmen, or Viennese. Any male of the Latin races she 
held metaphorically as well as literally at arm's length. Of 
the gracefulness, so apparent on the stage, even in her decline, 
there was not a trace to be found in private life. One of her 
shoulders was higher than the other ; she limped slightly, 
and, moreover, waddled like a duck. The pinched mouth 
was firmly set ; there was no smile on the colourless lips, and 
she replied to one's remarks in monosyllables. 

Truly she had suffered a cruel Avrong at the hands of men 
— of one man, bien entendu; nevertheless, the wonder to 
most people who knew her was not that Comte Gilbert de 
Voisins should have left her so soon after their marriage, but 
that he should have married her at all. " The fact was," said 
some one with whom I discussed the marriage one day, " that 
De Voisins considered himself in honour bound to make that 
reparation, but I cannot conceive what possessed him to com- 
mit the error that made the reparation necessary." And I 
am bound to say that it was not the utter lack of personal 
attractions that made everyone, men and women alike, indif- 
ferent to Taglioni. She was what the French call "une 
pimbeche."* "Am I not a good-natured woman?" said 
Mdlle. Mars one day to Hoffman, the blood-curdling novelist. 
*' Mademoiselle, you are the most amiable creature I know 
between the footlights and the cloth," he replied. No one 

* The word " shrew " is the nearest equivalent. — Editor. 



70 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

could have paid Taglioni even such a left-handed compli- 
ment, for, if all I heard was true, she was not good-tempered 
either on or off the stage. Dr. Veron, who was really a very 
loyal friend, was very reticent about her character, and would 
never be drawn into revelations. " You know the French 
proverb," he said once, when I pressed him very closely. " ' On 
ne herite pas de ceux que Ton tue ; ' and, after all, she helped 
me to make my fortune." 

That evening I was seated next to Mdlle. Taglioni at din- 
ner, and when she discovered my nationality she unbent a 
little, so that towards the dessert we were on comparatively 
friendly terms. She had evidently very grateful recollections 
of her engagements in London, for it was the only topic on 
which 1 could get her to talk on that occasion. Here is a 
little story I had from her own lips, and which shows the 
Scotch of the early thirties in quite a new light. It may 
have been known once, but has been probably forgotten by 
now, except by the "oldest inhabitant" of Perth. In 1832 
or 1833 — I will not vouch for the exact year, seeing that it is 
two score of years since the story was told to me — the season 
in London had been a fatiguing one for Taglioni. A ballet 
her father had composed for her, " Nathalie, ou la Laitiere 
Suisse," a very inane thing by all accounts, had met with 
great success in London. The scene, however, had, as far as 
I could make out, been changed from Switzerland to Scot- 
land, but of this I will not be certain. At the termination 
of her engagement Taglioni wanted rest, and she bethought 
herself to recruit in the Highlands. After travelling hither 
and thither for a little while, she arrived at Perth, and, as a 
matter of course, put down her name in the visitors' book of 
the hotel, then went out to explore the sights of the town. 
Meanwhile the report of her arrival had spread like wildfire, 
and on her return to the hotel she found awaiting her a depu- 
tation from the principal inhabitants, with the request to 
honour them with a performance. " The request was so gra- 
ciously conveyed," said Taglioni, " that I could not but ac- 
cept, though I took care to point out the difficulties of per- 
forming a ballet all by myself, seeing that there was neither 
a corps de ballet, a male dancer, nor any one else to support 
me. All these objections were overruled by their promise to 
provide all these in tlie best way they could, and before I had 
time to consider the matter fully, I was taken off in a cab to 
inspect the theatre, etc. Great heavens, what a stage and 



A SCRATCH PERFORMANCE. 71 

scenery ! Still, I had given my promise, and, seeing their 
anxiety, would not go back from it. I cannot tell where 
they got their 2jer so n7iel from. There was a director and a 
stage- manager, but as he did not understand French, and as 
my English at that time was even worse than it is now, we 
were obliged to communicate through an interpreter. His 
English must have been bewildering, to judge from the man- 
ager's blank looks when he spoke to him, and his French was 
even more wonderful than my English. He was a German 
waiter from the hotel. 

" Nevertheless, thanks to him, I managed to convey the 
main incidents of the plot of ' Xathalie ' to the manager, and 
during the first act, the most complicated one, all went well. 
But at the beginning of the second everything threatened to 
come to a standstill. I must tell you that my father hit upon 
the novel idea of introducing a kind of dummy, or lay figure, 
on which this idiotic Nathalie lavishes all her caresses. The 
young fellow, who is in love with Nathalie, contrives to take 
the dummy's place ; consequently, in order to preserve some 
semblance of truth, and not to make Nathalie appear more 
idiotic than she is already, there ought to be a kind of like- 
ness between the dummy and the lover. I know not whether 
the interpreter had been at fault, or whether in the hurry- 
scurry I had forgotten all about the dummy, but a few min- 
utes before the rise of the curtain I discovered that there was 
no Hiummy. ' You must do the dummy,' I said to Pierre, my 
servant, 'and I'll pretend to carry you on.' Pierre nodded a 
silent assent, and immediately began to don the costume, see- 
ing which I had the curtain rung up, and went on to the 
stage. I was not very comfortable, though, for I heard a 
violent altercation going on behind the scenes, the cause of 
which I failed to guess. I kept dancing and dancing, getting 
near to the wings every now and then, to ask whether Pierre 
was ready. He seemed to mo inordinately long in changing 
his dress, but the delay was owing to something far more 
serious than his careful i)reparation for the part. Pierre 
had a pair of magnificent whiskers, and the young fellow 
who enacted the lover had not a hair on his face. Pierre 
was ready to go on, when the manager noticed the differ- 
ence. ' Stop ! ' he shouted ; ' that won't do. You must 
have your whiskers taken off.' Pierre indignantly refused. 
The manager endeavoured to persuade him to make the 
sacrifice, but in vain, until at last he had him held down on 



72 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

a cliair by two stalwart Scotchmen while the barber did his 
work. 

" All this had taken time, but the public did not grow 
impatient. They would have been very difficult to please 
indeed had they behaved otherwise, for I never danced to 
any audience as I did to them. One of the few pleasant 
recollections in my life is that evening at Perth ; and, curi- 
ously enough, Tien-e, who is still with me, refers to it with 
great enthusiasm, notwithstanding the cavalier treatment in- 
flicted upon him. It was his first and last appearance on 
any stage." 

' Here is another story Taglioni told me on a subsequent 
occasion. I have often wondered since whether Macaulay 
w^ould not have been pleased with it even more than I was. 

" The St. Petersburg theatrical season of ^24:-'2b had been 
particularly brilliant, and nowhere more so than at the Italian 
Opera. I came away laden with presents, among others one 
from the Czar — a magniticent necklet of very line pearls. 
When the theatre closed at Lent, I was very anxious to get 
away, in spite of the inclement season, and notwithstanding 
the frequent warnings that the roads were not safe. AVhen- 
ever the conversation turned on that topic, the name of 
Trischka was sure to crop up ; he, in fact, was the leader of 
a formidable band of highwaymen, compared with whose 
exploits those of all the others seemed to sink into insignifi- 
cance. Trischka had been steward to Prince Paskiwiccz, and 
was spoken of as a very intelligent fellow. Nearly every one 
with whom I came in contact had seen him while he was still 
at St. Petersburg, and had a good word to say for him. His 
manners were reported to be perfect ; he spoke French and 
German very fairly ; and, most curious of all, he was an ex- 
cellent dancer. Some went even as far as to say that if he 
had adopted that profession, instead of scouring the high- 
ways, he would have made a fortune. By all accounts he 
never molested poor people, and the rich, whom he laid 
under contribution, had never to complain of violent treat- 
ment either in words or deeds — nay, more, he never took 
all they possessed from his victims, he was content to 
share and share alike. But papa n'ecoutait pas de cet' oreille 
la; papa etait tres pen partageur; and, truth to tell, I was 
taking away a great deal of money from St. Petersburg — 
which was perhaps another reason why papa did not see the 
necessity of paying tithes to Trischka. If we had followed 



TAGLIONI'S HUSBAND. 73 

papa's advice, we should have either applied to the Czar for 
an armed escort, or else delayed our departure till the middle 
of the summer, though he failed to see that the loss of my en- 
gagements elsewhere would have amounted to a serious item 
also. But papa had got it into his head not to part with any 
of the splendid presents I had received ; they were mostly 
jewels, and people who do not know papa can form no idea 
what they meant to him. However, as we were plainly 
told that Trischka conducted his operations all the year 
round, that we were as likely to be attacked by him in sum- 
mer as in winter, papa reluctantly made up his mind to go 
in the beginning of April. Papa provided himself with a 
pair of large pistols that would not have hurt a cat, and were 
the laughing-stock of all those who accompanied us for the 
first dozen miles on our jo»urney ; for I had made many friends, 
and they insisted on doing this. We had two very roomy 
carriages. My father, my maid, two German violinists, and 
myself were in the first; the second contained our luggage. 

" At the first change of horses after Pskolf, the postmaster 
told us that Trischka and his band had been seen a few days 
previously on the road to Dunabourg , at the same time, he 
seemed to think very lightly of the matter, and, addressing 
himself particularly to me, opined that, with a little diplo- 
macy on my part and a good deal of sang-froid, I might be 
let olf very cheaply. All went well until the middle of the 
next night, when all of a sudden, in the thick of a dense 
forest, our road was barred by a couple of horsemen, while a 
third opened the door of our carriage. It was Trischka him- 
self. ' Mademoiselle Taglioni ? ' he said in very good German, 
lifting his hat. ' I am Mademoiselle Taglioni,' I replied in 
French. ' I know,' he answered, with a deeper bow than 
before. ' I was told you were coming this way. I am sorry, 
mademoiselle, that I could not come to St. Petersburg to see 
you dance, but as chance has befriended me, I hope you will 
do me the honour to dance before me here.' ' How can I 
dance here, in this road, monsieur?' I said beseechingly. 
'Alas, mademoiselle, I have no drawing-room to offer yoii,' 
he replied, still as polite as ever. ' Nevertheless,' he con- 
tinued, ' if you think it cannot be done, I shall be under the 
painful necessity of confiscating your carriages and luggage, 
and of sending you back on foot to the nearest post-town.' 
' But, monsieur,' I protested, ' the road is ankle-deep in mud.' 
' Truly,' he laughed, showing a beautiful set of teeth, ' but 



74 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

your weight won't make any difference ; besides, I dare say 
you have some rugs and cloths with you in the other car- 
riage, and my men will only be too pleased to spread them 
on the ground.' 

" Seeing that all my remonstrance would be in vain, I 
jumped out of the carriage. While the rugs were being laid 
down, my two companions, tlie violinists, tuned their instru- 
ments, and even papa was prevailed upon to come out, though 
he was sulky and never spoke a word. 

" I danced for about a quarter of an hour, and I honestly 
believe that I never had such an appreciative audience either 
before or afterwards. Then Trischka led me back to the car- 
riage, and, simply lifting his hat, bade me adieu. ' I keep the 
rugs, mademoiselle. I will never part with them,' he said. The 
last I saw of him, Avhen our carriages were turning a bend in 
the road, was a truly picturesque figure on horseback, waving 
his hand." 

More than eight years elapsed before I met Taglioni 
again, and then she looked absolutely like an old woman, 
though she was under fifty. It was at the Oomte (afterwards 
Due) de Morny's, in '52, and, if I remember rightly, almost 
immediately after his resignation as Minister of the Interior. 
Taglioni and Mdlle. Rachel were the only women present. 
Just as we were sitting down to dinner. Count Gilbert de 
Voisins came in, and took the next seat but one on my loft 
which had been reserved for him. We were on friendly, 
though not on very intimate terms. He was evidently not 
aware of the presence of his wife, for after a few minutes he 
asked his neighbour, pointing to her, " Who is this governess- 
looking old maid ?" He told him. He showed neither sur- 
prise nor emotion; but, if an artist could have been found 
to sketch his face there, its perfect blank would have been 
more amusing than either. lie seemed, as it were, to consult 
his recollections; then he said, "Is it? It may be, after 
all;" and went on eating his dinner. His wife acted less 
diplomatically. She recognized him at once, and made a re- 
mark to her host in a sufficiently loud voice to be overheard, 
which was not in good taste, the more that De Morny, not- 
withstanding his many faults, was not the man to have in- 
vited both for the mere pleasure of playiug a practical joke. 
In fact, I have always ci-edited De Morny with the good in- 
tention of bringing about a reconciliation between the two ; 
but the affair was hopeless from the very beginning, after 



VON FLOTOW. T5 

Taglioni's exhibition of temper. I am fur from saying that 
Count Gilbert would have been more tractable if it had not 
occurred, but his spouse shut the door at once upon every 
further attempt in that direction. Nevertheless, whether out 
of sheer devilry or from a wish to be polite, he went up to 
her after dinner, accompanied by a friend, who introduced 
him as formally as if he and she had never seen one another. 
It was at a moment when the Comte de Morny was out of 
the room, because I feel certain that he was already sorry 
then for what he had endeavoured to do, and had washed his 
hands of the whole affair. Taglioni made a stately bow. "I 
am under the impression," she said, " that I have had the 
honour of meeting you before, about the year 1832." With 
this she turned away. Let any playwright rej)roduce that 
scene in a farcical or comedy form, and I am sure that three- 
fourths of his audience would scout it as too exaggerated, and 
yet every incident of it is absolutely true. 

Among my most pleasant recollections of those days is 
that connected with Von Flotow, the future composer of 
" Martha." In appearance he was altogether unlike the 
traditional musician ; he looked more like a stalwart officer 
of dragoons. Though of noble origin, and with a very 
wealthy father, there was a time when he had a hard strug- 
gle for existence. Count von Flotow, his father, and an old 
officer of Blucher, was nearly as much opposed to his son 
becoming a musician as Frederick the Great's. Neverthe- 
less, at the instance of Flotow's mother, he was sent to Paris 
at the age of sixteen, and entered the Conservatoire, then 
under the direction of Eeicha. His term of apprenticeship 
was not to extend beyond two years, " for," said the count, 
" it does not take longer for the rawest recruit to become a 
good soldier." " That will give you a fair idea," remarked 
Von Flotow to me afterwards, " how much he understood 
about it. He had an ill-disguised contempt for any music 
whicli did not come up to his ideal. His ideal was that per- 
formed by the drum, the fife, and the bugle. And the very 
fact of Germany ringing a few years later with the names of 
Meyerbeer and Halevy made matters worse instead of mend- 
ing them. His feudal pride would not allow of his son's 
entering a profession the foremost ranks of which were occu- 
" pied by Jews. 'Music,' he said, 'was good enough for 
bankers' sons and the like,' and he considered that Weber 
had cast a slur upon his family by adopting it." 



76 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

The two years grudgingly allowed by Count von Flotow 
for his son's musical education were interrupted by the 
revolution of 1830, and the young fellow had to return home 
before he was eighteen, because, in his father's opinion, " he 
had not given a sign of becoming a great musician ; " in 
other words, he had not written an opera or anything else 
which had attracted public notice. However, towards the 
beginning of 1831, the count took his son to Paris once 
more ; " and though Meyerbeer nor Halevy were not so 
famous then as they w^ere destined to become within the 
next three years, their names were already sufficiently well 
known to have made an introduction valuable. It would 
not have been difficult to obtain such. My father w^ould not 
hear of it. ' I will not have my son indebted for anything 
to a Jew,' he said ; and I am only quoting this instance of 
prejudice to you because it was not an individual but a typ- 
ical one among my father's social equals. The remark about 
' his son's entering a profession in which two Jews had car- 
ried oft* the highest prizes ' is of a much later date. Conse- 
quently we landed in Paris, ]3rovided with letters of intro- 
duction to M. de Saint-Georges.* Clever, accomplished, 
refined as was M. de Saint-Georges, he was scarcely the 
authority a father with serious intentions about his son's 
musical career would have consulted ; he w^as a charming, 
skilful librettist and dramatist, a thorough man of the world 
in the best sense of the word, but absolutely incapable of 
judging the higher qualities of the composer. Nevertheless, 
I owe him much ; but for him I should have been dragged 
back to Germany there and then ; but for him I should have 
been compelled to go back to Germany five years later, or 
starved in the streets of Paris. 

" My father's interview with M. de Saint-Georges, and 
my first introduction to him," said Flotow on another occa- 
sion, " were perhaps the most comical scenes ever enacted oft 
the stage. You know my old friend, and have been to his 
rooms, so I need not describe him nor his surroundings to 
you. You have never seen my father ; but, to give you an 
idea of what he was like, I may tell you that he was an en- 
larged edition of myself. A bold rider, a soldier and a 



* Jules-Henri de Saint-Geor.ofes, one of the most fertile librettists of the 
time, the principal collaborateur of Scribe, and best known in England as the 
author of the book of Balfc's "Bohemian Girl."— Editor. 



VON FLOTOWS FATHER. 77 

sportsman, fairly well educated, but upon the whole a very 
rough diamond, and, I am afraid, with a corresponding con- 
tempt for the elegant and artistic side of Paris life. You 
may, therefore, picture to yourself the difference between 
the two men — M. de Saint-Georges in a beautiful silk dress- 
ing-gown and red morocco slippers, sipping chocolate from 
a dainty porcelain cup ; my father, who, contrary to German 
custom, had always refused to don that comfortable gar- 
ment, and who, to my knowledge, had never in his life tasted 
chocolate. For the moment I thought that everything was 
lost. I was mistaken. 

" ' Monsieur,' said my father in French, which absolutely 
creaked with the rust of age, ' I have come to ask your advice 
and a favour besides. My son desires to become a musician. 
Is it possible ? ' 

" ' There is no reason why he should not be,' rej^lied M. 
de Saint-Georges, ' provided he has a vocation.' 

" ' Vocation may mean obstinacy,' remarked my father. 
' But let us suppose the reverse — that obstinacy means voca- 
tion : how long would it take him to prove that he has 
talent ? ' 

" ' It is difficult to say — five years at least.' 

" ' And two he has already spent at the Conservatoire will 
make seven. I hope he will not be like Jacob, who, after 
that period of waiting, found that they had given him the 
wrong goddess ! ' growled my father, who could be grimly 
humorous when he liked. ' Five years more be it, then, but 
not a single day longer. If by that time he has not made 
his mark, I withdraw his allowance. I thank you for your 
advice ; and now I will ask a favour. Will you kindly supply 
my place — that is, keep an eye upon him, and do the best 
you can for him ? Remember, he is but twenty. It is hard 
enough that I cannot make a soldier of him ; from what I 
have heard and from what I can see, you will j)revent him 
from becoming less than a gentleman.' 

" M. de Saint- Georges was visibly moved. ' Let me hear 
what he can do,' he said, ' and then I will tell you.' 

" I sat down to the piano for more than an hour. 

" ' I will see that your son becomes a good musician, M. 
le Comte,' said M. de Saint-Georges. 

" Next morning my father went back to Germany. Noth- 
ing would induce him to stay a single day. He said the 
atmosphere of Paris was vitiated. 



78 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

" I need not tell you that M. de Saint- Georges kept his 
word as far as he was able ; he kept it even more rigorously 
than my father had bargained for, because when, exactly on 
the last day of the stipulated five years, I received a letter 
demanding my immediate return, and informing me that my 
father's banker had instructions to stop all further supplies, 
M. de Saint- Georges bade me stay. 

" ' I promised to make a musician of you, and I have 
kept my word. But between a musician and an acknowl- 
edged musician there is a difference. I say stay ! ' he ex- 
claimed. 

"^ How am I to stay without money?' 

" ' You'll earn some.' 

" ' How ? ' 

" ' By giving piano-lessons, like many a poor artist has 
done before you.' 

" I followed his advice, and am none the worse for the 
few years of hardships. I'he contrast between my own pov- 
erty and my wealthy surroundings was sufficiently curious 
during that time, and never more so than on the night when 
my name really became known to the general public. I am 
alluding to the first performance of ' Le Due de Guise,' 
which, as you may remember, Avas given in aid of the dis- 
tressed Poles, and sung throughout by amateurs. The re- 
ceipts amounted to thirty thousand francs, and the ladies of 
the chorus had something between ten and twelve millions of 
francs of diamonds in their hair and round their throats. 
All my earthly possessions in money consisted of six francs 
thirty-five centimes." 

I was not at the Thedtre de la Renaissance that night, 
but two or three years previously I had heard the first opera 
Flotow ever wrote, at the Hotel Castellane. I never heard 
" Rob Roy " since ; and, curiously enough, many years after- 
wards I inquired of Lord Granville, who sat next to me on 
that evening in 1838, whether he had. He shook his head 
negatively. " It is a great pity," he said, " for the music is 
very beautiful." And I believe that Lord Granville is a very 
good judge. 

The Hotel Castellane, or " La Maison du Mouleur," as it 
was called by the general public on account of the great 
number of scantily attired mythological deities with which 
its fa9ade was decorated, was one of the few houses wdiere, 
during the reign of Louis- Philippe, the discussion of polit- 



SOCIETY IN THE FORTIES. 79 

ical and dynastic differences was absolutely left in abeyance. 
The scent of party strife — I had almost said miasma — hung 
over all the other salons, notably those of the Princesse de 
Lieven, Madame Thiers, and Madame de Girardin, and even 
those of Madame Le Hon and Victor Hugo were not free 
from it. Men like myself, and especially young men, who 
instinctively guessed the hollowness of all this — who, more- 
over, had not the genius to become political leaders and not 
sufficient enthusiasm to become followers — avoided them ; 
consequently their description will find little or no place in 
these notes. The little I saw of Princesse de Lieven at the 
Tiiileries and elsewhere produced no wish to see more. 
Thiers was more interesting from a social and artistic jDoint 
of view, but it was only on very rare occasions that he consent- 
ed to doff his political armour, albeit that he did not wear 
the latter with unchanging dignity. Madame Thiers was an 
uninteresting woman, and only the " feeder " to her husband, 
to use a theatrical phrase. Madame Le Hon was exceedingly 
beautiful, exceedingly selfish, and, if anything, too amiable. 
The absence of all serious mental qualities was cleverly dis- 
guised by the mask of a grande dame ; but I doubt whether 
it was anything else but a mask. Madame Delphine de Gi- 
rardin, on the other hand, was endowed with uncommon 
literary, poetical, and intellectual gifts ; but I have always 
considered it doubtful whether even the Nine Muses, rolled 
into one, would be bearable for any length of time. As for 
Victor Hugo, no man not blessed with an extraordinary 
bump of veneration would have gone more than once to his 
soirees. The permanent entertainment there consisted of a 
modern version of the " perpetual adoration," and of nothing 
else, because, to judge by my few experiences, his guests were 
never offered anything to eat or to drink. As a set-off, the 
furniture and appointments of his apartments were more 
artistic than those of most of his contemporaries ; but Becky 
Sharp has left it on record that " mouton aux navets," dished 
up in priceless china and crested silver, is after all but 
" mouton aux navets," and at Hugo's even that homely fare 
was wanting. 

Among the few really good salons were those of the am- 
bassadors of the Two Sicilies, of England, and of Austria. 
The former two were in the FaubourgSaint-Honore, the lat- 
ter in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The soirees of the Duo 
de Serra-Cabriola were very animated ; there was a great deal 



80 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

of dancing. I cannot say the same of those of Lord and Lady 
Granville, albeit that both the host and hostess did the honours 
with charming and truly patrician grace and hospitality. 
But the English guests would not throw off their habitual 
reserve, and the French in the end imitated the manner of 
the latter, in deference, probably, to Jjord and Lady Gran- 
ville, who were not at all pleased at this sincerest form of 
French flattery of their countrymen. 

There was no such restraint at Count Apponyi's, in the 
Faubourg Saint-Germain, the only house where the old 
French noblesse mustered in force. The latter virtually felt 
themselves on their own ground, for the host was known to 
have not much sympathy with parvenus, even titled ones, 
though the titles had been gained on the battle-field. Had 
he not during the preceding reign ruthlessly stripped Soult 
and Marmont, and half a dozen other dukes of the first em- 
pire, by giving instructions to his servants to announce them 
by their family names ? Consequently, flirtation a la Mari- 
vaux, courtly galanterie a la Louis XV., sprightly and witty 
conversation, " minuetting " a la Watteau, was the order of 
the day as well as of the night there, for the dejeuner dan- 
sant was a frequent feature of the entertainment. No one 
was afraid of being mistaken for a financier anobli ; the only 
one admitted on a footing of intimacy bore the simple name 
of Hope. 

Nevertheless, it must not be thought that the entertain- 
ments, even at the three embassies, partook of anything like 
the splendour so noticeable during the second empire. The 
refreshments elsewhere partook of a simple character ; ices 
and cake, and lukewarm but by no means strong tea, formed 
the staple of them. Of course there were exceptions, such 
as, for instance, at the above-named houses, and at Mrs. 
Tudor's, Mrs. Locke's, and at Countess Lamoyloff's ; but the 
era of flowing rivers of champagne, snacks that were like 
banquets, and banquets that were not unlike orgies, had not 
as yet dawned. And, worse than all, in a great many salons 
the era of mahogany and Utrecht velvet was in full swing, 
while the era of white-and-gold walls, which were frequently 
neither white nor gold, was dying a very lingering death. 

The Hotel Castellane was a welcome exception to this, 
and politics were rigorously tabooed, the reading of long- 
winded poems was interdicted. Politicians were simply re- 
minded that the adjacent Elysee-Bourbon, or even the Hotel 



AMATEUR THEATRICALS. 81 

Pontalba, might still contain sufficiently lively ghosts to dis- 
cuss such all-important matters with them ; * poets who fan- 
cied they had something to say worth hearing, were invited 
to have it said for them from behind the footlights by rival 
companies of amateurs, each of which in many respects need 
not have feared comparison with the professional one of the 
Comedie-rran9aise. Amateur theatricals were, therefore, the 
principal feature of the entertainments at the Hotel Castel- 
lane ; but there were " off nights " to the full as brilliant as 
the others. There w^as neither acting nor dancing on such 
occasions, the latter amusement being rarely indulged in, ex- 
cept at the grand balls which often followed one another in 
rapid succession. 

I have said rival companies, but only the two permanent 
ones came under that denomination ; the others were wdiat 
we should term " scratch companies," got together for one 
or two performances of a special work, generally a musical 
one, as in the case of Flotow's " Eob Roy " and " Alice." 
They vied in talent with the regular troupes presided over 
respectively by Madame Sophie Gay, the mother of Madame 
Emile de Girardin, and the Duchesse d'Abrantes. Each con- 
fined itself to the interpretation of the w^orks of its manager- 
ess, who on such evening did the honours, or of those whom 
the manageress favoured with her protection. The heavens 
might fall rather than that an actor or actress of Madame 
Gay's company should act with Madame d'Abrantes, and vice 
versa. Seeing that neither manageress had introduced the 
system of " under-studies," disappointments were frequent, 
for unless a member of the Comedie-Fran9aise could be 
found to take up the part at a moment's notice, the perform- 
ance had necessarily to be postponed, the amateurs refusing 
to act with any but the best. Such pretensions may at the 
first blush seem exaggerated ; they were justified in this in- 
stance, the amateurs being acknowledged to be the equals of 
the professionals by every unbiassed critic. In fact, several 

* The Elysee-Bourbon, which was the official residence of Louis-Napoleon 
duvinp^ his pi-esidency of the second republic, was almost untenanted during 
the reign of Louis- Philippe. 

The Hotel Pontalba was partly built on the site of the former mansion of 
M. de Morfontaine, a staunch royalist, Avho, curiously enough, had married the 
daughter of Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau, the member of the Convention who 
had" voted the death of Louis XVL,"and who himself fell by the hand of an 
assassin. Mdlle. le Peletier Saint-Fargeau was called "La F'ille de la Nation." 
—Editor. 

7 



82 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

ladies among tlie amateurs " took eventually to the stage," 
notably Mdlles. Davenay and Mdlle. de Lagrange. The lat- 
ter became a very bright star in the operatic firmament, 
though she was hidden in the musical world at large by her 
permanent stay in Kussia. St.. Petersburg has ever been a 
formidable competitor of Paris for securing the best his- 
trionic and lyrical talent. Madame Arnould-Plessy, Bressant, 
Dupuis, and later on M. Worms, deserted their native scenes 
for the more remunerative, though perhaps really less artistic, 
triumphs of the theatre Saint-Michel; and when they re-, 
turned, the delicate bloom that had made their art so de- 
lightful was virtually gone. " C'etait de Part Fran9ais a la 
sauce Tartare," said some one who was no mean judge. 

The Comte Jules de Castellane, though fully equal, and 
in many respects superior, in birth to those who professed to 
sneer at the younger branch of the Bourbons, declined to be 
guided by these opponents of the new dynasty in their social 
crusade against the adherents to the latter; consequently 
the company was perhaps not always so select as it might 
have been, and many amusing incidents and piquaiites ad- 
ventures were the result. He put a stop to these, however, 
when he discovered that his hospitality was being abused, 
and that invitations given to strangers, at the request of 
some of his familiars, had been paid for in kind, if not in 
coin. 

As a rule, though, the company was far less addicted to 
scandal-mongering and causing scandal than similarly com- 
posed " sets " during the subsequent reign. They were not 
averse to playing practical jokes, especially upon those who 
made themselves somewhat too conspicuous by their eccen- 
tricities. Lord Brougham, who was an assiduous guest at 
the Hotel Castellane during his frequent visits to Paris, was 
often selected as their victim. He, as it were, provoked the 
tricks played upon him by his would-be Don- Juanesque be- 
haviour, and by the many opportunities he lost of holding 
his tongue — in French. He absolutely murdered the lan- 
guage of Moliere. His worthy successor in that respect was 
Lady Norman by, who, as some one said, " not only murdered 
the tongue, but tortured it besides." The latter, however, 
never lost her dignity amidst the most mirth-compelling 
blunders on her part, while the English statesman was often 
very near enacting the buffoon, and was once almost in- 
duced to accept a role in a vaudeville, in which his execrable 



M. DE SAINT-GEORGES. 83 

French would no doubt have been highly diverting to the 
audience, but would scarcely have been in keeping with the 
position he occupied on the other side of the Channel. 
"Quant a Lord Brougham," said a very witty Frenchman, 
quoting Shakespeare in French, " il n'y a pour lui qu'un pas 
entre le sublime et le ridicule. C'est le pas de Calais, et il le 
traverse trop sou vent." 

In 1842, when the Comte Jules de Castellane married 
Mdlle. de Villontroys, whose mother had married General 
Kapp and been divorced from him, a certain change came 
over the spirit of the house ; the entertainments were as 
brilliant as ever, but the two rival manageresses had to abdi- 
cate their sway, and the social status of the guests was sub- 
jected to a severer test. The new dispensation did not ostra- 
cize the purely artistic element, but, as the comtesse tersely 
put it, " dorenavant, je ne recevrai que ceux qui ont de I'art 
ou des armoiries." She strictly kept her word, even during 
the first years of the Second Empire, when pedigrees were a 
ticklish thing to inquire into. 

I have unwittingly drifted away from M. de Saint- 
Georges, who, to say the least, was a curious figure in 
artistic and literary Paris during the reigns of Louis-Phi- 
lippe and his successor. He was quite as fertile as Scribe, 
and many of his plots are as ingeniously conceived and 
worked out as the latter's, but he sulfered^ both in reputa- 
tion and purse from the restless activity and pushing char- 
acter of the librettist of " Robert le Diable." Like those of 
Rivarol,* M. Saint-Georges' claims to be of noble descent 
were somewhat contested, albeit that, unlike the eighteenth- 
century pamphleteer, he never obtruded them ; but there 
could be no doubt about his being a gentleman. He was 
utterly different in every respect from his rival. Scribe was 
not only eaten up with vanity, but grasping to a degree ; he 
had dramatic instinct, but not the least vestige of literary 
refinement. M. de Saint- Georges, on the contrary, was ex- 
ceedingly modest, very indifferent to money matters, chari- 
table and obliging in a quiet way, and though perhaps not 
inferior in stage-craft, very elegant in his diction. When 
he liked, he could write verses and dialogue which often 
reminded one of Moliere. It was not the only trait he had 
in common with the great playwright. Moliere is said to 

* One of the great wits of the Revolution. — Editor. 



84 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

have consulted his housekeeper, Laforet, with regard to his 
productions; M. de Saint-Georges was known to do the 
same — with this difference, however, that he did not always 
attend to Marguerite's suggestions, in which case Marguerite 
grew wroth, especially if the piece turned out to be a success, 
in spite of her predictions of failure. On such occasions the 
popular approval scarcely compensated M. de Saint-Georges 
for his discomforts at home ; for though Marguerite was an 
admirable manager at all times — when she liked, though 
there was no bachelor more carefully looked after than the 
author of " La Fille du Regiment," he had now and then to 
bear the brunt of Marguerite's temper when the public's 
verdict did not agree with hers. 

If under such circumstances M. de Saint-Georges ventured 
to give a dinner, the viands were sure to be cold, the Bor- 
deaux iced, and the champagne lukewarm. M. de Saint- 
Georges, who, notwithstanding his courtly manners, was can- 
dour itself, never failed to state the reasons of his discomfiture 
as a host to his guests. " Que voulez vous, mes amis, la piece 
n'a pas plu a Marguerite et le diner s'en ressent. Si je lui 
faisais une observation, elle me repondrait comme elle m'a 
repondu deja maintes fois. Le diner etait mauvais, vous 
dites? C'est possible, il etait assez bien pour ceux qui ont 
eu le bon gout d'applaudir votre piece hier-au-soir." Because 
Mdlle. Marguerite had a seat in the upper boxes reserved for 
her at all the first representations of her master's pieces. She 
did not always avail herself of the privilege at the Opera, but 
she never missed a first night at the Opera- Comique. I have 
quoted textually the words of M. de Saint- Georges on the 
morrow of the premiere of " Giselle," a ballet in two acts, 
written in collaboration with Theophile Gautier. " ' Giselle ' 
had been a great success; Marguerite had i3redicted a failure ; 
hence we had a remarkably bad dinner." 

I had had many oiDportunities of seeing Marguerite, 
and often wondered at the secret of the tyranny slie exer- 
cised. She was not handsome — scarcely comely ; she was 
not even as smart in her appearance as dozens of servants I 
have seen, and her mental attainments, as far as I could 
judge, were not above those of her own class. One can un- 
derstand a Turner, a Jean Jacques Rousseau, submitting to 
the influence of such a low-born companion, because, after 
all, they, though men of genius, sprang from the people, and 
may have felt awkward, ill at ease, in the society of well-bred 



AN IMPARTIAL CRITIC. 85 

men and women, especially of women. Beranger sometimes 
gave me that idea. But, as I have already said, no one could 
mistake M. de Saint-Georges for anything but a well-bred 
man. Notwithstanding his little affectations, his inordinate 
love of scents, his somewhat effeminate surroundings, good 
breeding was patent at every sentence, at every movement. 
He was not a genius, certainly not, but the above remarks 
hold good of a man who tvas a genius, and who sprang, 
moreover, from the higher bourgeoisie of the eighteenth cent- 
ury — I am alluding to Eugene Delacroix. 



86 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Boulevards in the forties — The Chinese Baths — A favourite tobacconist of 
Alfred de Musset — The price of cigars — The diligence still the usual mode 
of travelling — Provincials in Paris — Parliamentary see-saw between M. 
Thiers and^M. Guizofr— Amenities of editors — An advocate of universal 
sutfrage— Distribution of gratuitous sausages to the working man on the 
king's birthday — The rendezvous of actors in search of an engagement — 
Frederick Lemaitre on the eve of appearing in a new part — The Legitimists 
begin to leave their seclusion and to mingle with tne bourgeoisie — Alex- 
andre Dumas and Scribe — The latter's fertility as a playwright— The 
National Guards go shooting, in uniform and in companies, on the Plaine 
Saint-Denis — Vidocq's private inquiry office in the Kue Vivienne — No 
river-side resorts — The plaster elephant on the Place de la Bastille — The 
sentimental romances of Loisa Puget — The songs of the working classes — 
Cheap bread and wine — How they enjoyed themselves on Sundays and 
holidays — Theophile Gautier's pony-carriage — The hatred of the" bour- 

feoisie — Nestor Koqueplan's expression of it — Gavarni\s — M. Thiei-s' sister 
eeps a restaurant at the corner of the Rue Drouot— Wlien he is in power, 
the members of the Opposition go and dine there, and publish facetious 
accounts of the entertainment — All appearances to the contrary, people 
like Guizot better than Thiers — But fevv entries for the race for wealth in 
those days — The Rothschilds still live in the Rue Latitte— Favourite 
lounges— The Boulevards, the Rue Le Peletier, and the Passage de I'Opera 
— The Opera— The Rue Le Peletier and its attractions — The Restaurant of 
Paolo Broggi— The Estaminet du Divan — Literary waiters and Boniface — 
Major Fra'ser — The mystery surrounding his origin — Another mysterious 

f)ersonage — The Passage de I'Opera is invaded by the stockjobbers, and 
OSes its prestige as a promenade — Bernard Latte's, the publislier of Doni- 
zetti's operas, becomes deserted — Tortoni's — Louis-Blanc — His scruples as 
an editor — A few words about duelling — Two tragic meetings — Lola Montes 
— Her adventurous career — A celebrated trial — My first meeting with Gus- 
tave Flaubert, the author of " Madame Bovary " and " Sal^mbft " — Emile 
de Girardin — His opinion of duelling — My decision with regard to it— The 
original of "La Dame aux Cainelias "— ^Her parentage — Alexandre Dumas 
gives the diagnosis of her character in connection with his son's play — 
L'Homme au Camellia — ]\I. Lautour-Mezerai, the inventor of children's 
periodical literature in France— Auguste Lireux — He takes the manage- 
ment of the Odeon— Balzac again — His schemes, his greed — Lireux more 
fortunate with other authors — Anglophobia on the French stage — Gallo- 
phobia on the English stage. 

EvEJ^" in those days " the Boulevards " meant to most of 
lis nothing more than the space between the present opera 
and the Kue Drouot. But the Credit Lyonnais and other 
palatial buildings which have been erected since were not as 
much as dreamt of ; if I remember rightly, the site of that 



PARIS IN THE FORTIES. 87 

bank was occnpied by two or three " Chinese Baths." I sup- 
pose the process of steaming and cleansing the human body 
was something analogous to that practised in our Turkish 
baths, but I am unable to say from experience, having never 
been inside, and, curious to relate, most of my familiars were 
in a similar state of ignorance. We rarely crossed to that 
side of the boulevard except to go and dine at the Cafe An- 
glais. At the corner of the Rue Lafltte, oj^posite the Maison 
d'Or, was our favourite tobacconist's, and the cigars we used 
to get there were vastly superior to those we get at present in 
Paris at five times the cost. The assistant who served us was 
a splendid creature. Alfred de Musset became so enamoured 
of her that at one time his familiars apprehended an " im- 
prudence on his part." Of course, they were afraid he would 
marry her. 

In those days most of our journeys in the interior of 
France had still to be made by the mails of Lafitte-Caillard, 
and the people these conveyances brought up from the prov- 
inces were almost as great objects of curiosity to us as we 
must have been to them. It was the third lustre of Louis- 
Philippe's reign. " God," according to the coinage, " pro- 
tected France," and when the Almighty seemed somewhat 
tired of the task, Thiers and Guizot alternately stepped in to 
do the safeguarding. Parliament resounded with the elo- 
quence of orators who are almost forgotten by now, except by 
students of history ; ]\I. de Genoude was clamouring for uni- 
versal suffrage; M. de Cormenin, under the nam de jMime of 
" Timon," was the fashionable pamphleteer ; the paj^ers in- 
dulged in vituperation against one another, compared to 
which the amenities of the rival Eatanswill editors were com- 
pliments. Grocers and drapers objected to the participation 
of M. de Lamartine in the affairs of State. The Figaro of 
those days went by the title of Cor saire- Satan., and, though 
extensively read, had the greatest difficulty in making both 
ends meet. In order to improve the lot of the working man, 
there was a gratuitous distribution of sausages once a year on 
the king's fete-day. The ordinary rendezvous of provincial 
and metropolitan actors out of an engagement was not at the 
Cafe de Suede on the Boulevard Montmartre, but under the 
trees at the Palais-Royal. Frederick Lemaitre went to con- 
fession and to mass every time he " created " a new role. The 
Legitimists consented to leave their aristocratic seclusion, and 
to breathe the same air with the bourgeoisie and proletarians 



88 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

of the Boulevard du Crime, to see him play. The G-ovcrn- 
ment altered the title of Sue and Goubeaux's drama " Les 
Pontons Anglais " into " Les Pontons," short, and made the 
authors change the scene from England to Spain. Alexandre 
Dumas chaifed Scribe, and flung his money right and left ; 
while the other saved it, bought country estates, and produced 
as many as twenty plays a year (eight more than he had con- 
tracted for). The National Guards went in uniform and in 
companies to shoot hares and rabbits on the Plaine Saint- 
Denis, and swaggered about on the Boulevards, ogling the 
women. Vidocq kept a private inquiry office in the Passage 
Vivienne, and made more money by blackmailing or catch- 
ing unfaithful husbands than by catching thieves. Bougival, 
Asnieres and Joinville-le-Pont had not become riparian re- 
sorts. The plaster elephant on the Place de la Bastille was 
crumbling to pieces. The sentimental romances of Madame 
Loisa Puget proved the delight of every bourgeoise family, 
while the chorus to every popular song was " Larifia, larifla, 
fla, fla, fla." 

Best of all, from the working man's point of view, was 
the low price of bread and wine ; the latter could be had at 
four sous the litre in the wine-shops. He, the working man, 
still made excursions with his w^ife and children to the Arte- 
sian well at Grenelle ; and if stranded perchance in the 
Champs-Elysees, stood lost in admiration at the tiny carriage 
with ponies to match, driven by Theophile Gautier, who had 
left olf wearing the crimson waistcoats wherewith in former 
days he hoped to annoy the bourgeois, though he ceased not 
to rail at him by word of mouth and with his pen. He was 
not singular in that respect. Among his set, the hatred of 
the bourgeois was ingrained ; it found constant vent in small 
things. Nestor Roqueplan wore jackboots at home instead 
of slippers, because the latter chaussure was preferred by the 
shopkeeper. Gavarni published the most biting pictorial 
satires against him. Here is one. A dissipated-looking loaf- 
er is leaning against a lamp-post, contemptuously staring at 
the spruce, trim bourgeois out for his Sunday walk with his 
wife. The loafer is smoking a short clay pipe, and some of 
the fumes of the tobacco come between the wind and the 
bourgeois' respectability. " Voyou ! " says the latter con- 
temptuously. " Voyou tant que vous voulez, pas epicier," is 
the answer. 

In those days, when M. Thiers happened to be in power, 



A LITERARY CAFE. 89 

many members of the Opposition and their journalistic cham- 
pions made it a point of organizing little gatherings to the 
table-d'hote kept by Mdlle. Thiers, the sister of the Prime 
Minister of France. Her establishment was at the entrance 
of the present Rue Drouot, and a sign-board informed the 
passer-by to that effect. There was invariably an account of 
these little gatherings in next day's papers — of course, with 
comments. Thiers was known to be the most wretched shot 
that ever worried a gamekeeper, and yet he was very fond of 
blazing away. " We asked Mdlle. Thiers," wrote the com- 
mentators, " whether those delicious pheasants she gave us 
were of her illustrious brother's bagging. The lady shook 
her head. ' Non, monsieur ; le President du Conseil n'a pas 
I'honneur de fournir mon etablissement ; a quoi bon, je 
peux les acheter a meilleur marche que lui et au memo en- 
droit. S'il m'en envoyait, il me ferait payer un benefice, 
parcequ'il ne fait jamais rien pour rien. C'est un pen le de- 
faut de notre famille.' " I have got a notion that, mercurial 
as was M. Thiers up to the last hour of his life, and even 
more so at that period, and sedate as was M. Guizot, the 
French liked the latter better than the former. 

M. Guizot had said, " Enrichissez vous," and was known 
to be poor ; M. Thiers had scoifed at the advice, and was 
known to be hoarding while compelling his sister to earn her 
own living. It must be remembered that at the time the 
gangrene of greed had not entered the souls of all classes of 
Frenchmen so deeply as it has now, that the race for wealth 
had as yet comparatively few votaries, and that not every 
stockjobber and speculator aspired to emulate the vast finan- 
cial transactions of the Rothschilds. The latter lived, in 
those days, in the Rue Lafitte, where they had three separate 
mansions, all of which since then have been thrown into one, 
and are at present exclusively devoted to business purposes. 
The Rue Lafitte was, however, a comparatively quiet street. 
The favourite lounges, in addition to the strip of Boulevards 
I have already mentioned, were the Rue Le Peletier and the 
galleries of the Passage de I'Opera. Both owed the prefer- 
ence over the other thoroughfares to the immediate vicinity 
of the Opera, which had its frontage in the last-named street, 
but was by no means striking or monumental. Its archi- 
tect, Debret, had to run the gauntlet of every kind of satire 
for many a year after its erection; the bitterest and most 
scathing of all was that, perhaps, of a journalist, who wrote 



90 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

one day that, a provincial having asked him the way to the 
grand opera, he had been obliged to answer, " Turn down 
the street, and it is the first large gateway on your right." 

But if the building itself was unimposing, the company 
gathered around its entrance consisted generally of half a 
dozen men whose names were then already household words 
in the musical world — Auber, Halevy, Kossini and Meyer- 
beer, St. Georges, Adam. Noav and then, though rarely to- 
gether, all of these names will frequently reappear in these 
notes. The chief attractions, though, of the liue Le Peletier 
were the famous Italian restaurant of Paolo Broggi, patron- 
ized by a great many singers, the favourite haunt of Mario, 
in the beginning of his career, and I'Estaminet du Divan, 
which from being a very simple cafe indeed, developed into 
a kind of politico-literary club under the auspices of a num- 
ber of budding men of letters, journalists, and the like, whose 
modest purses were not equal to the charges of the Cafe 
Riche and Tortoni, and who had gradually driven all more 
prosaic customers away. I believe I was one of the few ha- 
bitues who had no literary aspirations, who did not cast long- 
ing looks to the inner portals of the ofUces of the National) 
the bigwigs of which — Armand J\Iarrast, Baron Dornes^ 
Gerard de Nerval, and others — sometimes made their appear- 
ance there, though their restaurant in ordinary was the Cafe 
Hardi. The Estaminet du Divan, however, pretended to a 
much more literary atmosphere than the magnificent estab- 
lishment on the boulevard itself. It is a positive fact that 
the waiters in the former would ask, in the most respectful 
way imaginable, " Does monsieur want Sue's or Dumas' feu- 
illeton with his cafe ? " Not once but a dozen times I have 
heard the proprietor draw attention to a remarkable article. 
Major Fraser, though lie never dined there, spent an hour or 
two daily in the Estaminet du Divan to read the papers. He 
was a great favourite with every one, though none of us knew 
anything about his antecedents. In spite of his English 
name, he was decidedly not English, though he spoke the 
language. He was one of the best-dressed men of the pe- 
riod, and by a well-dressed man I do not mean one like Sue. 
He generally wore a tight-fitting, short-skirted, blue frock- 
coat, grey trousers, of a shape which since then we have de- 
fined as " pegtops," but the fashion of which was borrowed 
from the Cossacks. They are still worn by some French 
officers in cavalry regiments, notably crack cavalry regiments. 



MAJOR FRASER. 91 

Major Fraser might have fitly borrowed Piron's epitaph 
for himself : " Je ne suis rien, pas meme Academicien." He 
was a bachelor. He never alluded to his parentage. He 
lived by himself, in an entresol at the corner of the Rue La- 
fitte and the Boulevard des Italiens. He was always flush of 
money, though the sources of his income were a mystery to 
every one. He certainly did not live by gambling, as has 
been suggested since ; for those who knew him best did not 
remember having seen him touch a card. 

I have always had an idea, though I can give no reason 
for it, that Major Fraser was the illegitimate son of some ex- 
alted personage, and that the solution of the mystery sur- 
rounding him might be found in the records of the scandals 
and intrigues at the courts of Charles IV. and Ferdinand 
Vn. of Spain. The foreign " soldiers of fortune " who rose 
to high posts, though not to the highest like Eichards and 
O'Reilly, were not all of Irish origin. But the man himself 
was so pleasant in his intercourse, so uniformly gentle and 
ready to oblige, that no one cared to lift a veil which he was 
so evidently anxious not to have disturbed. I only remem- 
ber his getting out of temper once, namely, when Leon Goz- 
lan, in a comedy of his, introduced a major who had three 
crosses. The first had been given to him because he had not 
one, the second because he had already one, and the third 
because all good things consist of three. Then Major Fraser 
sent his seconds to the play wright ;-^the former effected a 
reconciliation, the more that Gozlan pledged his word that 
an allusion to the major was farthest from his thoughts. It 
afterwards leaked out that our irrepressible Alexandre 
Dumas had been the involuntary cause of all the mischief. 
One day, while he was talking to Gozlan, one of his secre- 
taries came in and told him that a particular bugbear of his, 
and a great nonentity to boot, had got the Cross of the 
Legion of Honour. 

" Grand Dieu," exclaimed Gozlan, " pourquoi lui a-t-on 
donne cette croix ? " 

" Yous ne savez pas ? " said Alexandre, looking very wise, 
as if he had some important state secret to reveal. 

" Assurement, je ne le sais pas," quoth Gozlan, " ni vous 
non plus." 

" Ah, par exemple, moi, je le sais." 

" He bien, dites alors." 

" On lui a donne la croix parceque il n'en avait pas." 



92 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

It was the most childish of all tricks, but Gozlan laughed 
at it, and, when he wrote his piece, remembered it. He 
amplified the very small joke, and, on the first night of his 
play, the house went into convulsions over it. 

Major Eraser's kindness and gentleness extended to all 
men — except to professional politicians, and those, from the 
highest to the lowest, he detested and despised. He rarely 
spoke on the subject of politics, but when he did every one 
sat listening with the rap test attention ; for he was a perfect 
mine of facts, which he marshalled with consummate ability 
in order to show that government by party was of all idiotic 
institutions the most idiotic. But his knowledge of political 
history was as nothing to his familiarity with the social in- 
stitutions of every civilized country and of every period. 
Curiously enough, the whole of his library in his own apart- 
ment did not exceed two or three scores of volumes. His 
memory was something prodigious, and even men like 
Dumas and Balzac confessed themselves his inferiors in that 
respect. The mere mention of the most trifling subject 
sufficed to set it in motion, and the listeners were treated to 
a " magazine article worth fifty centimes la ligne au moins," 
as Dumas put it. But the major could never be induced to 
write one. Strange to say, he often used to hint that his 
was no mere book-knowledge. " Of course, it is perfectly 
ridiculous," he remarked with a strange smile, " but every 
now and again I feel as if all this did not come to me through 
reading, but from personal experience. At times I become 
almost convinced that I lived with Nero, that I knew Dante 
personally, and so forth." 

When Major Fraser died, not a single letter was found in 
his apartment giving a clue to his antecedents. Merely a file 
of receipts, and a scrap of paper attached to one — the receipt 
of the funeral company for his grave, and expenses of his 
burial. The memorandum gave instructions to advertise his 
demise for a week in the Journal des Debdts^ the money for 
which would be found in the drawer of his dressing-table. 
His clothes and furniture were to be sold, and the proceeds 
to be given to the Paris poor. " I do not charge any one with 
this particular dut}''," the document went on ; " I have so 
many friends, every one of whom will be ready to carry out 
my last wishes." 

Anotlier "mystery," though far less interesting than Ma- 
jor Fraser, was the Persian gentleman whom one met every- 



LOUIS BLANC. 93 

where, at the Opera, at the Bois de Boulogne, at the concerts 
of the Conservatoire, etc. Though invariably polite and 
smiling, he never spoke to any one. For ten years, the occu- 
pant of the stall next to his at the Opera , had never heard 
him utter a syllable. He always wore a long white silk petti- 
coat, a splendidly embroidered coat over that, and a conical 
xA-strakan cap. He was always alone ; and though every one 
knew where he lived, in the Passage de TOpera, no one had 
ever set foot in his apartment. As a matter of course, all 
sorts of legends were current about him. According to some, 
he had occupied a high position in his own country, from 
which he had voluntarily exiled himself, owing to his detesta- 
tion of Eastern habits ; according to others, he was simply a 
dealer in Indian shawls, who had made a fortune. A third 
group, the spiteful ones, maintained that he sold dates and 
pastilles, and that the reason why he did not speak was be- 
cause he was dumb, though not deaf. He died during the 
Second Empire, very much respected in the neighbourhood, 
for he had been very charitable. 

Towards the middle of the forties the Passage de I'Opera 
began to lose some of its prestige as a lounge. The outside 
stockjobbers, whom the police had driven from the Boule- 
vards and the steps of Tortoni, migrated thither, and the 
galleries that had resounded with the SAveet warblings — in a 
very low key — of the clients of Bernard Latte, the publisher 
■ of Donizetti's operas, were made hideous and unbearable with 
the jostling and bellowing of the money-spinners. Bernard 
Latte himself was at last compelled to migrate. 

In the house the ground-floor of which was occupied by 
Tortoni, and which was far different in aspect from what it 
is now, lived Louis Blanc. Toward nine in the morning he 
came down for his cup of cafe au lait. It was the first cup 
of coffee of the day served in the establishment. I w\as never 
on terms of intimacy with Blanc, and least of all then, for I 
shared with Major Eraser a dislike to politic-mongers, and, 
rightly or wrongly, I have always considered the author of 
*' L'Histoire de Dix Ans " as such. Though Louis Blanc was 
three or four and thirty then, he looked like a boy of seven- 
teen — a fact not altogether owing to his diminutive stature, 
though he was one of the smallest men, if not the smallest 
man, I ever saw. Of course I mean a man not absolutely a 
dwarf. I have been assured, however, that he was a giant 
compared to Don Martinez Garay, Duke of Altamira, and 



94 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Marquis of Astorga, a Spanish statesman, who died about the 
early part of the twenties. These notes do not extend be- 
yond the fall of the Commune, and it was only after that 
e'v-ent that I met M. Blanc once or twice in his old haunts. 
Hence my few recollections of him had better be jotted down 
here. They are not important. The man, though but sixt}^, 
and apparently not in bad health, looked cUsillusione. They 
were, no doubt, the most trying years to the Third Republic, 
but M. Blanc must have perceived well enough that, grant- 
ing all the existing difficulties, the men at the head of affairs 
were not the Republicans of his dreams. He had, moreover, 
suffered severe losses ; all his important documents, such as 
the correspondence between him and George Sand and Louis- 
Napoleon while the latter was at Ham, and other equally 
valuable matter, had been destroyed at the fire of the [N'orth- 
ern Goods Station at La Yillette, a fire kindled by the Com- 
munists. He was dressed almost in the fashion of the for- 
ties, a wide-skirted, long, brown frockcoat, a shirt innocent 
of starch, and a broad-brimmed hat. A few years later, he 
founded a paper, V Homme- Lihre^ the offices of which were 
in the Rue Grange-Bateliere. The concern was financed by 
a Polish gentleman. Blanc gave his readers to understand 
that he would speak out plainly about persons and things, 
whether past or present ; that he would advance nothing ex- 
cept on documentary proofs; but that, whether he did or 
not, he would not be badgered into giving or accepting chal-. 
lenges in defence of his writings. " I am, first of all, too 
old," he said ; " but if I were young again, I should not re- 
peat my folly of '47, when I wanted to fight with Eugene 
Pelletan on account of a woman whose virtue, provided she 
had any, could make no difference to either of us. It does 
not matter to me that we were not the only preux chevaliers 
of that period, ready to do battle for or against the charms of 
a woman whose remains had crumbled to dust by then." * 



* M. Eugeue Pelletan, the father of M. Camille Pelletan, the editor of La 
Justice^ and tlrst lieutenant to M. Clemeneeau, having severely criticized some 
passages in M. Blanc's "■ Histoire de la Kevolution," relating to Marie-Antoinette, 
the author quoted a passage of Madame Campan's '' Memoires " in support of his 
writings. Tlie critic refused to admit the conclusiveness of the proof, where- 



( 



upon M, Blanc appealed to 1 
niing up of M. Ta.xile De 



the Societe des Gens de Lettres, which, on the sum- 



^ ap of M. Ta.xile JJelord, gave a verdict in his favour. M. Pelletan 
declmed to submit to the verdict, as he had refused to admit the jurisdiction, 
of the tribunal. M. Blanc, who liad at first scouted all idea of a duel, con- 
sidered himself obliged to resort to this means of obtaining satisfaction, seeing 



LOUIS BLANC AS AN EDITOR. 95 

M. Blanc's boast that he would advance nothing except 
on proof positive was not an idle one, as his contributors 
found out to their cost. Every afternoon, at three, he arrived 
at the office to read the paper in proof from the first line to 
the last. Not the slightest inaccuracy was allowed to pass. 
Kind as he was, his reporters' lives became a burden. One 
of the latter told me a story which, though it illustrates the 
ridiculousness of M. Blanc's scruples when carried too far, is 
none the less valuable. A dog had been run over on the 
Boulevards, and the reporter, with a hankering after the 
realistic method, had endeavored to reproduce onomato- 
poeically the sounds uttered by the animal in pain. 

" Are you quite sure, monsieur, about your sounds ? " 
asked Blanc. 

" Of course, I am as sure as a non-scientific man can be," 
was the answer. 

"Then strike them out; one ought to be scientifically 
sure. By-the-by, I see you have made use of the word 
'howl' {hurler). Unless I am mistaken, a dog when in pain 
yelps {(/lap it). Please alter it." 

On another occasion, on going through the advertise- 
ments, he found a new one relating to a cough mixture, set- 
ting forth its virtues in the most glowing terms. Imme- 
diately the advertisement canvasser was sent for, M. Blanc 
having refused to farm out that department to an agency, as 
is frequently done in Paris, in order to retain the absolute 
control over it. 

" Monsieur, I see that you have a new advertisement, and 
it seems to me a profitable one ; still, before inserting it, I 



that M. Pelletan stoutly maintained his opinion. A meetinor had been arranged 
■when the Revolution of 48 broke out. The opponents bavins: both gone to the 
H6tel-de-Ville, met by accident at the entrance, and fell into one another's 
arms. '' Thank Heaven ! " exclaimed Thiers, when he heard of it. " If Pelletan 
had killed Blanc, I should have been the smallest man in France." 

M. Blanc's allusion to other "preux chevaliers" aimed particularly at M. 
Cousin, Avlio, having become a minister against his will, resumed with a sigh of 
relief his studies mider the Second Empire. He Avas especially fond of the 
Beventeenth century, and all at once lie, who had scarcely ever noticed a pretty 
woman, became violently smitten with the Duehesse de Longueville, wlio had 
been in her grave for nearly two centuries. He positively invested her with 
every perfection, moral and mental ; unfortunately, he could^not invest her with 
a shapely bust, the evidence being too overwhelmingly against her having been 
adorned that way. One day some one showed him a portrait of the sister of 
tine "grand Conde," in which she was amply provided with the charms the 
absence of which M. Cousin regretted. He wrote a special chapter on the sub- 
ject, and was well-nigh challenging all his contradictors. — Editor. 



96 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

should like to be certain that the medicine does all it pro- 
fesses to do. Can yon personally vouch for its efficiency ? " 

" Mon Dieu, monsieur, I believe it does all it professes to 
do, but you can scarcely expect me to run the risk of bron- 
chitis in order to test it upon myself ! " 

" Heaven forbid that I should be so exacting and indif- 
ferent to other people's health, but until you can bring me 
some one who has been cured, we will not insert it." 

Let me come back for a moment to that sentence of 
Louis Blanc, about the practice of duelling, in connection 
with one of the most tragic affairs of that kind within my 
recollection. I am alluding to the Dujarrier-Beauvallon 
duel. I have been in the habit for years, whenever an im- 
portant meeting took place in France, to read every shade of 
English opinion on the subject ; and while recognizing the 
elevated sentiments of the writers, I have no hesitation in 
saying that not a single one knew what he was writing about. 
They could not grasp the fact that for a man of social stand- 
ing to refuse a challenge or to refrain from sending one, save 
under very exceptional circumstances, was tantamount to 
courting social death. They knew not that every door would 
henceforth be closed against him ; that his wife's best friends 
would cease to call upon her, by direction of their husbands ; 
that his children at school would be shunned by their com- 
rades ; that no young man of equal position to his, were he 
ever so much in love with his daughter, would ask her to 
become his wife, that no parents would allow their daughter 
to marry his son. That is what backing out of a duel meant 
years ago ; that is what it still means to-day — of course, I 
repeat, with certain classes. Is it surprising, then, that with 
such a prospect facing him, a man should risk death rather 
than become a pariah"? Would the English leader-writer, if 
he be a man of worth, like to enter his club-room without a 
hand held out to welcome him from those with whom he was 
but a few weeks ago on the most friendly footing, without a 
voice to give him the time of day ? I think not ; and that 
is what would happen if he were a Frenchman who neglected 
to ask satisfaction for even an imaginary insult. 

I knew M. Dujarrier, the general manager of La Presse^ 
and feel convinced that he was not a bit more quarrelsome 
or eager " to go out " than Louis Blanc. It is, moreover, 
certain that he felt his inferiority, both as a swordsman and 
as a marksman, to such a practised shot and fencer as M. de 



DUELS. 97 

Beauvallon ; and well he might, seeing that subsequent evi- 
dence proved that he, Dujarrier, had never handled either 
weapon. Yet he not only strenuously opposed all attempts 
on the part of his friends to effect a reconciliation, but would 
not afford a hint to his adversary of his want of skill, lest 
the latter should make him a present of his life. The pres- 
ent Avould not have been worth accepting. It would have 
been a Nessus-shirt, and caused the moral death of the recip- 
ient. Consequently, Dujarrier literally went like a lamb to 
the slaughter rather than be branded as a coward, and he 
made no secret of his contemplated sacrifice. " I have no 
alternative but to fight," he said, two days before the meet- 
ing, to Alexandre Dumas, who taxed all his own ingenuity, 
^nd that of his son, to prevent, at any rate, a fatal issue. 
The only way to effect this, according to the very logical 
reasoning of the two Dumases, was to induce Dujarrier, who, 
as the offended party, had the choice of weapons, to choose 
the sword. They counted upon the generosity of Beauval- 
lon, who, as a gentleman, on discovering his adversary's utter 
lack of skill, would disarm, or inflict a slight wound on 
him. Unfortunately, young Dumas, with the best inten- 
tions, unburthened himself to that effect among those most 
interested in the affair, namely, the staffs of La Presse and 
Le Globe. These two journals were literally at daggers 
drawn, and some writers connected with the latter went 
hinting, if not saying openly, that Dujarrier was already 
showing the white feather. Whether Dujarrier heard of the 
comments in that shape, or whether he instinctively guessed 
what they would be, has never been clearly made out, but it 
is certain that from that moment he insisted upon the use of 
pistols. " I do not intend my adversary to show me the 
slightest favour, either by disarming me or by wounding me 
in the arm or leg. I mean to have a serious encounter," he 
said. Young Dumas, frightened perhaps at his want of reti- 
cence in the matter, begged his father to go and see Grisier,* 
and claim his intervention. Alexandre Dumas, than whom 
no stauncher friend ever existed who would have willingly 
risked his own life to save that of Dujarrier, had to decline 
the mission suggested by his son. " I cannot do it," he said ; 
"the first and foremost thing is to safeguard Dujarrier's 

* The great fencing-master, whom Duniiis hnniortalized in his ^'Maitre 
dMrmes."— Editor. 



98 AN ENGLISHMx\N IN PARIS. 

reputation, which is the more precious because it is his first 
duel." 

" His first duel," — here is the key-note to the whole of the 
proceedings as far as Dujarrier and his personal friends were 
concerned. Had Dujarrier been in the position of the edi- 
tor of his i^aper, Emile de Girardin, — had he been out before 
and killed or severely wounded his man, as the latter killed 
Armand Carrel nine years before, — he might have openly an- 
nounced his determination " never to go out again " under 
no matter what provocation. Unfortunately, Dujarrier was 
not in that position ; in fact, it is no exaggeration to say 
that Dujarrier paid the penalty of M. de Girardin's decision. 
A great deal of mawkish sentiment has been wasted upon 
the tragic fate of Armand Carrel ; in reality, he had what he 
deserved, albeit that no one more than M. de Girardin himself 
regretted his untimely end. Most writers will tell one that 
Carrel fell a victim to his political opinions ; nothing is 
farther from the truth. Armand Carrel fell a victim to a 
" question of shop " of which he allowed himself, though 
perhaps not deliberately, to become the champion. After 
many attempts, more or less successful, in the way of popu- 
lar journalism, M. de Girardin, in 1836, started La Presse, 
a serious journal of the same size as the then existing ones, 
but at half the subscription of the latter, all of which abso- 
lutely banded at once against him. Armand Carrel, who 
was a soldier, and a valiant soldier, a writer of talent, and a 
gentleman to boot, ought to have stood aloof from that kind 
of polemics. Emile de Girardin was not the likely man to 
submit to open or implied insult. His best, albeit his least- 
known book, " Emile," which is as it were an autobiography, 
had given the measure of his thoughts on the subject of 
duelling. " Emile " goes into society as a soldier would go 
into an enemy's country. Not that he is by nature cruel or 
bloodthirsty, but he knows that, to hold his own, he must be 
always ready, not only for defence, but for attack. 

" The secret one is bound to preserve with regard to the 
preparations for a meeting, and those preparations them- 
selves are simply horrible. The care, the precautions to be 
taken, the secret which is not to leak out, all these are very 
like the preparations for a crime," he says. " Xevertheless," 
he goes on, " the horror of all this disappears, when the man, 
impelled by hatred or resentment, is thirsting for revenge ; 
but when the heart is absolutely without gall, and when the 



A CELEBRATED ENCOUNTER. ' 99 

imagination, is still subject to all the softer emotions, then, 
in order not to recoil with fear at the ever horrible idea of a 
duel, a man must be imbued with all the force of a preju- 
dice which resists the very laws that condemn it." 

It was under the latter circumstances that M. de Girar- 
din confronted his adversary. The two men had probably 
never exchanged a word with one another, they felt no per- 
sonal animosity; nay, more, the duel w^as not an inevitalle 
one ; and yet it cost one man his life, and burthened the 
other with lifelong regrets. 

Had the issue been different, La Presse would probably 
have disappeared, and all recrimination ceased. As it was, 
unable to goad M. de Girardin into a reversal of his decision 
" never to go out again," and that in spite of nine years of 
direct insult from a so-called political party, of every kind of 
quasi-legal vexation, M. de Beauvallon constituted himself a 
second Armand Carrel, selecting Dujarrier as his victim, the 
chief not being available. But here all resemblance to Ar- 
mand Carrel ceased, and the law itself was anxious to mark 
the difference. In the one case it had been set at nought by 
two men of undoubted courage and undoubted honour, meet- 
ing upon equal terms ; in the other, it was proved that, not 
content with Dujarrier's well-known inferiority, De Beau- 
vallon's pistols had been tried before the encounter. The 
court could take no cognizance of this, but it marked its 
disapproval by sentencing Beauvallon to eight years', and 
one of his seconds, M. d'Ecquevilley, to ten years' imprison- 
ment for perjury. Both had declared on oath that the pis- 
tols had not been tried. The Dujarrier duel caused a deep 
and painful sensation. I have dwelt upon it at greater length 
than was absolutely necessary, because it inspired me with a 
resolution from which I have never departed since. I was 
twenty-seven at the time, and, owing to circumstances which 
I need not relate here, foresaw that the greater part of my 
life would be spent in France. I am neither more courage- 
ous nor more cowardly than most persons, but I objected to 
be shot down like a mad dog on the most futile pretext because 
some one happened to have a grudge against me. To have 
declined " to go out " on the score of my nationality would 
not have met the case in the conditions in which I was liv- 
ing, so from that moment I became an assiduous client at 
Gosset's shooting-gallery, and took fencing lessons of Grisier. 
I do not know that I became very formidable with either 



100 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

weapon, only sufficiently skilled not to be altogether defence- 
less. I took care at the same time to let it go forth that a 
duel to me not only meant one or both parties so severely 
wounded as not to be able to continue the struggle, but the 
resumption of the combat, when he or they had recovered, 
until one was killed. Of course, it implied that I would only 
go out for a sufficiently weighty reason, but that, if com- 
pelled to do so for a trifling one, I would still adhere to my 
original resolution. Only once, more than twelve years aft- 
erwards, I had a quarrel fastened upon me, arising out of 
the excitement consequent upon the attempt of Orsini. I 
was the offended party, and, as such, could dictate the con- 
ditions of the meeting. I declined to modify in the least 
the rules I had laid down for my own guidance, and stated 
as much to those who were to act for me — Oeneral Fleury 
and Alexandre Dumas. My adversary's friends refused to 
accept the terms. I was never molested afterwards, though 
an Englishman had not always a pleasant life of it, even un- 
der the Second Empire. 

In connection with Dujarrier's duel, I may say a few 
words here of that quasi-wonderful woman, Lola Montes. 
I say " quasi," because really there was nothing wonderful 
about her, except perhaps her beauty and her consummate 
impudence. She had not a scrap of talent of any kind ; 
education she had none, for, whether she spoke in Eng- 
lish, French, or Spanish, grammatical errors abounded, and 
her expressions were always those of a pretentious house- 
maid, unless they were those of an excited fishwife. She 
told me that she had been at a boarding-school in Bath, 
and that she was a native of Limerick, but that when quite a 
child she was taken to Seville by her parents. Her father, 
according to her account, was a Spaniard, her mother a 
Creole. " But I scandalized every one at school, and would 
not learn." I could quite believe that ; what I could not 
believe was that a girl of her quick powers — for she undoubt- 
edly possessed those — could have spent, however short a time 
in the society of decent girls of her own age, let alone of 
presumedly refined school-mistresses, without having ac- 
quired some elementary notions of manner and address. Her 
gait and carriage were those of a duchess, for she was natu- 
rally graceful, but the moment she opened her lips, the illu- 
sion vanished — at least to me ; for I am bound to admit that 
men of far higher intellectual attainments than mine, and 



LOLA MONTES. 101 

familiar witli very good society, raved and kept raving about 
her, though all those defects could not have failed to strike 
them as they had struck me. I take it that it must have been 
hei beauty, for, though not devoid of wit, her wit was that of 
the pot-house, which would not have been tolerated in the 
smoking-room of a club in the small hours. 

When Dujarrier was carried home dying to the Rue 
Lafitte, a woman flung herself on the body and covered his 
face with kisses. That woman was Lola Montes. In his will 
he left her eighteen shares in the Palais-Royal Theatre, amount- 
ing in value to about 20,000 francs. She insisted afterwards 
in appearing as a witness at the trial in Rouen, although her 
evidence threw not the slightest light u23on the matter. She 
wanted to create a sensation ; and she accomplished her aim. 
I was there, and though the court was crowded with men oc- 
cupying the foremost ranks in literature, art, and Paris soci- 
ety, no one attracted the attention she did. Even the sober 
president and assessors sat staring at her open-mouthed wdien 
she took her stand behind the little rail which does duty for 
a witness-box in France. She was dressed in mourning — not 
the deepest, but soft masses of silk and lace — and when she 
lifted her veil and took off her glove to take the prescribed 
oath, a murmur of admiration ran through the court. That 
is why she had undertaken the journey to Rouen, and verily 
she had her reward. 

It was on that occasion that I became acquainted, though 
quite by accident, with the young man who, ten or eleven years 
later, was to leap into fame all of a sudden with one novel. 
I have already said that the court was very crowded, and next 
to me was standing a tall, strapping fellow, somewhat younger 
than myself, whom, at the first glance, one would have taken 
to be an English country gentleman or well-to-do farmer's son. 
Such mistakes are easily made in Normandy. When Lola 
Montes came forward to give her evidence, some one on the 
other side of him remarked that she looked like the heroine 
of a novel. 

" Yes," he replied ; " but the heroines of the real novels 
enacted in everyday life do not always look like that." 

Then he turned to me, having seen me speak to several 
people from Paris and in company of Alexandre Dumas 
and Berryer, whom everybody knew. He asked me 
some particulars about Lola Montes, which I gave him. I 
found him exceedingly well-informed. We chatted for 



102 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

a while. When he left he handed me his card, and hoped 
that we should see one another again. The card bore the 
simple superscription of " Gustave Flaubert." I was told 
during the evening that he was the son of a local physician 
of note. Twelve years later the whole of France rang with 
his name. He had written " Madame Bovary," and laid the 
foundation of what subsequently became the ultra-realistic 
school of French fiction. 

To return for a moment to Lola Montes. The trial was 
really the starting-point of her notoriety, for, in spite of her 
beauty, she had been at one time reduced to sing in the streets 
in Brussels. That was after she had fled from Calcutta, whith- 
er her first husband, a captain or lieutenant James, in the serv- 
ice of the East India Company, had taken her. She landed 
at Southampton, and, during her journey to London, man- 
aged to ingratiate herself with an English nobleman, by pre- 
tending that she was the wife a Spanish soldier who had been 
shot by the Carlists. She told me all this herself, because she 
was not in the least reticent about her scheming, especially- 
after her scheming had failed. She would, however, not di- 
vulge the name of her travelling companion, who tried to be- 
friend her by introducing her to some of his acquaintances, 
with the view of obtaining singing lessons for her. " But I 
did not make my expenses, because you English are so very 
moral and my patron was suspected of not giving himself all 
that trouble for nothing. Besides, they managed to ferret out 
that I was not the widow of a Spanish officer, but the wife of 
an English one ; and then, as you may imagine, it was all up. 
I got, however, an engagement at the Opera House in the bal- 
let, but not for long ; of course, I could not dance much, but 
I could dance as well as half your wooden ugly women that 
were there. But they told tales about me, and the manager 
dismissed me.'' * 

* The English nobleman must have been Lord Malmesbury, who alludes to 
her as follows : " This was a most remarkable woman, and may be said by her 
conduct at Munich to liave set fire to the magazine of revolution, which was 
ready to burst forth all over Europe, and which made the year 1848 memorable. 
1 made her acquaintance by accident, as 1 was going up to London from Heron 
Court, in the railway. The Consul at Southampton asked me to take charge of 
a Spanish lady who had been recommended to his care, and who had just 
landed. I consented to do this, and was introduced by him to a remarkably 
handsome person, who was in deep mourning, and who appeared to be in great 
distress. As we were alone in the carriage, she, of her own accord, informed 
me, in bad English, that she was the widow of Bon Diego Leon, who had lately 
been shot by the Carlists after he was taken prisoner, and that she was going to 



ROYAL CONJUGAL FELICITY. 103 

She fostered no illusions with regard to her choregraphic 
talents ; in fact, she fostered no illusions about anything, 
and her candour was the best trait in her character. She 
had failed as a dancer in Warsaw, whither she had gone from 
London, by way of Brussels. In the Belgian capital, accord- 
ing to her own story, she had been obliged to sing in the 
streets to keep from starvation. I asked her why she had not 
come from London to Paris, " where for a woman of her at- 
tractions, and not hampered by many scruples," as I pointed 
out to her, " there were many more resources than elsewhere." 
The answer was so characteristic of the daring adventuress, 
who, notwithstanding her impecuniosity, flew at the highest 
game to be had, that I transcribe it in full. I am often re- 
luctant to trust to my memory : in this instance I may ; I 
remember every word of it. This almost illiterate schemer, 
who probably had not the remotest notion of geography, of 
history, had pretty well " the Almanach de Gotha " by heart, 
and seemed to guess instinctively at things which said Al- 
manach carefully abstained from mentioning, namely, the 
good understanding or the reverse between the married royal 
couples of Europe, etc. 



London to sell some Spanish property that she possessed, and give lessons in 
shiging, as she was very poor. On arriving in London she took some lodgings, 
and came to my house to a little concert which I gave, and sang some Sp'anish 
ballads. Her accent was foreign, and she had all the appearance of being what 
she pretended to be. She sold different things, such as veils, etc., to the party 
present, and received a good deal of patronage. Eventually she took an en- 
gagement for the ballet at the Opera House, but her dancing was very inferior. 
At last she was recognized as an impostor, her real name being Mrs. James, 
and Irish by extraction, and had married an officer in India. Her engagement 
at the Opera was cancelled, she left the country, and retired to Mimich. She 
was a very violent woman, and actually struck one of the Bavarian generals as 
he was reviewing the troops. Tlie king became perfectly infatuated with her 
beauty and cleverness, and gave her large sums of money, Avith a title, which 
she afterwards bore when she returned' to England." ('' Memoirs of an Ex- 
minister," by the Earl of Malmesbury.) 

Lord Malmesbury is wrong in nearly every particular which he has got 
from hearsay. Lola Montes did not retire to Munich after her engagement' at 
the Opera Ilouse had been cancelled, but to Brussels, and from there to War- 
saw. Nor did she play the all-important part in the Bavarian riots or revolu- 
tion he ascribes to her. The author of these notes has most of the particulars 
of Lola Montes' career previous to her appearance in Munich from her own 
lips, and, as he has already said, she was not in the least reticent about her 
scheming, especially when her sclieming had failed. For the story of the 
events at Munich, I gather inferentially from his notes that he is indebted to 
Karl von Abel, King Ludwig's ultramontane minister, who came afterwards 
to Paris, and who, if 1 mistake not, was the father or the uncle of Herr von 
Abel, the Berlin correspondent of the Times, some fourteen or fifteen years ago. 
— Editor. 



104 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

" Why did I not come to Paris ! " she replied. " What 
was the good of coming to Paris where there was a king, 
bourgeois to his finger-nails, tight-fisted besides, and notori- 
ously the most moral and best father all the world over ; with 
princes who were nearly as much married as their dad, and 
with those who were single far away? What was the good 
of coming to a town where you could not bear the title of 
*■ la maitresse du prince ' without the risk of being taken to 
the frontier between two gendarmes, wdiere you could not have 
squeezed a thousand louis out of any of the royal sons for 
the life of you ? What was the good of trying to get a count, 
where the wife of a grocer or a shoemaker might have ob- 
jected to your presence at a ball, on the ground of your being 
an immoral person ? No, I really meant to make my way 
to the Hague. I had heard that William II. whacked his 
wife like any drunken labourer, so that his sons had to in- 
terfere every now and then. I had heard this in Calcutta, 
and from folk who were likely to know. But as I thought 
that I might have the succession of the whacks, as w^ell as of 
the lord, I wanted to try my chance at Brussels first ; besides, 
I hadn't much money." 

" But King Leopold is married, and lives very happily 
with his wife," I interrupted. 

" Of course he does — they all do," was the answer ; " mais 
9a n'empeche pas les sentiments, does it ? I am very igno- 
rant, and haven't a bit of memory, but I once heard a story 
about a Danish or Swedish king — I do not know the dif- 
ference — who married an adventuress like myself, though 
the queen and the mother of his heir was alive. He com- 
mitted bigmay, but kings and queens may do things we mayn't. 
One day, he and his lawful wife were at one of their country 
seats, and, leaning out of the window, when a carriage passed 
with a good-looking woman in it, ' Who is this lady ? ' asked 
the queen. ' That's my wife,' replied the king. ' Your wife ! 
what am I, then ? ' said the queen. ' You ? w^ell, you are my 
queen.' * 

" Never mind, whatever my intentions on Leopold's 
money or affections may have been, they came to nothing ; 
for before I could get as much as a peep at him, my money 



* Lola Montes was perfectly correct. It was Frederick IV. of Denmark, 
only the woman was not an adventuress like herself, but the Countess Kevent- 
iow, whom he had abducted. — Editor. 



HER WANDERINGS. 105 

had all been spent, and I was obliged to part with my clothes 
first, and then to sing in the streets to get food. I was taken 
from Brussels to Warsaw by a man whom I believe to be a 
German. He spoke many languages, but he was not very 
well olf himself. However, he was very kind, and, when we 
got to Warsaw, managed to get me an engagem-ent at the 
Opera. After two or three days, the director told me that I 
couldn't dance a bit. I stared him full in the face, and 
asked him whether he thought that, if I could dance, I would 
have come to such a hole as his theatre. Thereupon he 
laughed, and said I was a clever girl for all that, and that he 
would keep me on for ornament. I didn't give him the 
chance for long. I left after about tAvo months, with a 
Polish gentleman, who brought me to Paris. The moment 
I get a nice round lump sum of money, I am going to carry 
out my original plan ; that is, trying to hook a prince. I am 
sick of being told that I can't dance. They told me so in 
London, they told me in Warsaw, they told me at the Porte 
Saint-Martin where they hissed me. I don't think the men, 
if left to themselves, would hiss me ; their wives and their 
daughters put them up to it : a woman like myself spoils 
their trade of honest women. I am only waiting my chance 
here ; for though you are all very nice and generous and all 
that kind of thing, it is not what I want." 

Shortly after this conversation, the death of Dujarrier 
and his legacy to her gave her the chance she had been look- 
ing for. She^ left for London, I heard, with an Englishman ; 
but I never saw him, so I cannot say for certain. But, it 
appears, she did not stay long, because, a little while after, 
several Parisians, on their return from Germany, reported 
that they had met her at Wiesbaden, at Homburg, and 
elsewhere, punting in a small way, not settling down any- 
where, and almost deliberately avoiding both Frenchmen and 
Englishmen. The rumour went that her husband was on 
her track, and that her anxiety to avoid him had caused her 
to leave London hurriedly. In spite of her chequered career, 
in spite of the shortcomings at Brussels, Lola Montes was by 
no means anxious for the " sweet yoke of domesticity." Li 
another six months, her name was almost forgotten by all of 
us, except by Alexandre Dumas, who now and then alluded 
to her. Though far from superstitious, Dumas, who had 
been as much smitten with her as most of her admirers, 
avowed that he was glad she had disappeared. " She has 



108 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

' the evil eye,' " he said ; " and sure to bring bad hick to any 
one who closely links his destiny with hers, for however 
short a time. You see what has occurred to Dujarrier. If 
ever she is heard of again, it will be in connection with some 
terrible calamity that has befallen a lover of hers." We all 
laughed at him, except Dr. Veron, who could have given 
odds to Solomon Eagle himself at prophesying. Fortunately 
he was generally afraid to open his lips, for he was thoroughly 
sincere in his belief that he could prevent the event by not 
predicting it — at any rate aloud. For once in a way, how- 
ever, Alexandre Dumas proved correct. When we did hear 
again of Lola Montes, it was in connection with the disturb- 
ances that had broken out at Munich, and the abdication of 
her royal lover, Louis I. of Bavaria, in favour of his eldest 
son, Maximilian. 

The substance of the following notes relating to said 
disturbances was communicated to me by a political per- 
sonage who played a not inconsiderable part in the events 
themselves. As a rule it is not very safe to take interested 
evidence of that kind, " but in this instance," as my inform- 
ant put it, " there was really no political reputation to pre- 
serve, as far as he was concerned." Lola Montes had simply 
tried to overthrow him as Madame Dubarry overthrew the 
Due de Choiseul, because he would not become her creature ; 
and she had kept on repeating the tactics with every suc- 
ceeding ministry, even that of her own making. But it 
should be remembered that revolution was in the air in the 
year '48, and that if Lola Montes had been the most retiring 
of favourites, or Louis I. the most moral of kings, the upris- 
ing would have happened just the same, though the upshot 
might have been different with regard to Louis himself. 

Here is a portrait of him, which, in my literary igno- 
rance, I think sufficiently interesting to reproduce. 

" Louis was a chip of the old Wittelsbach block ; that is, 
a Lovelace, with a touch of the minnesinger about him. Age 
had not damped his ardour; for, though he was sixty-one 
when Lola Montes took up her quarters at Munich, any and 
every ' beauty ' that came to him was sure of an enthusiastic 
welcome. And Heaven alone knows how many had come to 
him during his reign ; they seemed really directed to him 
from every quarter of the globe. The new arrival had her 
portrait painted almost immediately ; it was added to tlie 
collection for which a special gallery had been set apart, and 



LOLA AND LOUIS L OF BAVARIA. 107 

whither Louis went to meditate by himself at least once a 
day. He averred that he went thither for poetic inspiration, 
for he took himself au serieux as a poet, and, above all, as a 
classical poet modelling his verse upon those of ancient 
times. He had published a volume of poems, entitled ' Wal- 
halla's Genossen ' ; * but his principal study of antiquity was 
mainly confined to the rites connected with the worship of 
Venus. He was very good-natured and pleasant in his deal- 
ings with every one ; he had not an ounce of gall in the 
whole of his body. He was, moreover, very religious in his 
own way, and consequently the tool of the Jesuits, who really 
governed the kingdom, but who endeavoured to make his 
own life sweet and pleasant to him. They liked him to take 
part in the religious processions, as any burgher of devout 
tendencies might, but being aware of his tendency to be at- 
tracted by the first pretty face he caught sight of, they took 
care to relegate all the handsome maidens and matrons to 
the first and second floors. In that way Louis's eyes were 
always lifted heavenwards, and religious appearances were 
preserved. 

" Under such conditions, it was not difficult for a woman 
of Lola Montes' attractions and daring to gain her ends. 
She was not altogether without means when she came to 
Munich, though the sum in her possession was far from a 
hundred thousand francs, as she afterwards alleged it was. 
At any rate, she was not the penniless adventuress she had 
formerly been, and when, in her beautiful dresses, she ap- 
plied to the director of the Hof -Theatre for an engagement, 
the latter was fairly dazzled, and granted her request without 
a murmur. She did, however, not want to dance, and, before 
her first appearance, she managed to set tongues wagging 
about her beauty, and, as a matter of course, the rumours 
reached the king's ears. I am afraid I shall have to prefer 
a grave charge, but I am not doing so without foundation. 
It is almost certain by now that the Jesuits, seeing in her a 
tool for the further subjugation of the superannuated royal 
troubadour, countenanced, if they did Qot assist her in her 
schemes ; they, the Jesuits, did many things of which a 
Catholic, like myself, however firm in his allegiance to Rome, 
could not but disapprove. At any rate, three or four days 
after the king's first meeting with her, Lola Montes was pre- 

* " Companions in Walhalla." — Editor. 



108 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

sented at court, and introduced to the royal family and corps 
diplomatique by the sovereign himself, as ' his best friend.' 
Events proceeded apace. In August, '47, the king granted 
her patents of ' special naturalization,' created her Baroness 
von Kosenthal, and, almost immediately afterwards, Countess 
von Landsfeld. She received an annuity of twenty thousand 
florins, and had a magnificent mansion built for her. At 
the instance of the king, the queen was compelled to confer 
the order of St. Ther(^se upon her. I, and many others, had 
strenuously opposed all this, though not unaware that, up 
till then, the Jesuits were on her side, rather than on ours. 
We paid the penalty of our opposition with our dismissal 
from ofhce, and then Lola Montes confronted the Jesuits by 
herself. She was absolutely mad to invade Wurtemberg, not 
for any political reason ; she could no more have accounted 
for any such than the merest hind, but simply because, a few 
months before her a23pearance at Munich, she had been, in 
her opinion, slighted by the old king. The fact was, old 
William, sincerely attached to Amalia Stubenrauch, the ac- 
tress, had not fallen a victim to Lola Montes' charm.s, and 
had taken little or no notice of her. The contemplated in- 
vasion of AV^urtemberg was an act of private revenge. But 
mad as she was, there was some one more mad still — King 
Louis I. of Bavaria. 

" The most ill-advised thing she did, perhaps, was to 
change her supporters. Like the ignorant, overbearing wom- 
an she was, she would not consent to share her power over 
the king with the Jesuits ; she tried to form an opposition 
against them among the students at the University, and she 
succeeded to a certain extent. These adherents constituted 
the nucleus of a corps which soon became known under the 
title of ' Allemanen.' But the more noble-minded and patri- 
otic youths at the Munich University virtually ostracized the 
latter, and several minor disturbances had already broken 
out in consequence of this, when, in the beginning of Febru- 
ary, '48, a more than usually serious manifestation against 
^ Lola's creatures,' as they were called, took place. The wom- 
an did not lack pluck, and she insisted upon defying the 
rioters by herself. But they proved too much for her ; and, 
after all, she was a woman. She endeavoured to escape from 
their violence, but every house was shut against her; che 
Swiss on guard at the Austrian Embassy refused her shelter. 
A most painful scene happened ; the king himself, the mo- 



THE REVOLUTION AT .MUNICH. 109 

ment the news reached him, rushed to her rescue, and, hav- 
ing elbowed his way through the threatening, yelling crowd, 
offered her his arm, and conducted her to the church of the 
Theatines, hard by. As a matter of course, several officers 
had joined him, and all might have been well, if she had 
taken the lesson to heart. But her violent, domineei'ing, 
vindictive temper got the better of her. No sooner did she 
find herself in comparative safety, than, emboldened by the 
presence of the officers, she snatched a pistol from one of 
them, and, armed with it, leapt out of the building, confront- 
ing the crowd, and threatening to fire. Heaven alone knows 
what would have been the result of this mad act, but for the 
timely arrival of a squadron of cuirassiers, wdio covered her 
retreat. 

" The excitement might have died out in a week or a fort- 
night, though the year '48 was scarcely a propitious one for 
a display of such quasi-feudal defiance, if she had merely been 
content to forego the revenge for the insults she herself had 
provoked ; but on the 10th of February she prevailed upon the 
king to issue a decree, closing the University for a twelve- 
month. The smouldering fire of resentment against her con- 
stant interference in the affairs of the country blazed forth 
once more, and this time with greater violence than ever. 
The working men, nay, the commercial middle classes, 
hitherto indifferent to the king's vagaries, which, after all, 
brought grist to their mill, espoused the students' cause. 
Barricades were erected ; the cry was not ' Long live the 
Constitution,' or ' Long live the Republic,' but ' Down with 
the concubine.' It was impossible to mistake the drift of 
that insurrection, but, in order to leave no doubt about it in 
the sovereign's mind, a deputation of the municipal council 
and one of the Upper House w^aited upon Louis, and insisted 
upon the dismissal of Lola Montes, who, in less than an hour, 
left Munich, escorted by a troop of gendarmes, who, however, 
had all their work to. do to prevent her from being torn to 
pieces by the mob. Her departure was the signal for the pil- 
laging of her mansion, at which the king looked on — as he 
thought — incognito. It is difficult to determine what prompt- 
ed him to commit so rash an act. Was it a feeling of relief at 
having got rid of her — for there was a good deal of cynicism 
about that semi-philosophical, semi-mystical troubadour — 
or a desire to chew the cud of his vanished happiness? 
Whatever may have been the reason, he paid dearly for 



110 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

it, for some one smashed a looking-glass over his head, 
and he was carried back to the palace, unconscious, and 
bleeding profusely. It was never ascertained who inflicted 
the wounds, though there is no doubt that the assailant 
knew his victim. Meanwhile Lola Montes had succeeded 
in slipping away from her escort, and three hours later she 
re-entered Munich disguised, and endeavoured to make her 
way to the palace. But the latter was carefully guarded, 
and for the next month all her attempts in that direction 
proved fruitless, though, audacious as she was, she did not 
dare stop for a single night in the capital itself. Besides, 
I do not believe that a single inhabitant would have 
given her shelter. Unlike a good many royal favourites 
of the past, she had no personal adherents, no faithful 
servants who would have stood by her through thick and 
thin, because she never treated any one kindly in the days 
of her prosperity : she could only bribe ; she was incapable 
of inspiring disinterested affection among those who were 
insensible to the spell of her marvellous beaut3\" 

So far the narrative of my informant. The rest is pretty 
well known by everybody. A few years later, she committed 
bigamy with another English officer, named Heald, who was 
drowned at Lisbon about the same time that her real husband 
died. Alexandre Dumas was right — she brought ill-luck to 
those who attached themselves to her for any length of time, 
whether in the guise of lovers or husbands. 

These notes about Lola Montes remind me of another 
woman whom public opinion would place in the same cate- 
gory, though she vastly differed in character. I am alluding 
to Alphonsine Plessis, better known to the world at large as 
" La Dame aux Camelias." I frequently met her in the so- 
ciety of some of my friends between '43 and '47, the year of 
her death. Her name was as I have written it, and not Marie 
or Marguerite Duplessis, as has been written since. 

The world at large, and especially the English, have al- 
ways made very serious mistakes, both with regard to the 
heroine of the younger Dumas' novel and play, and the au- 
thor himself. They have taxed him with having chosen an 
unworthy subject, and, by idealizing it, taught a lesson of 
vice instead of virtue ; they have taken it for granted that 
Alphonsine Plessis was no better than her kind. She was 
much better than that, though probably not sufficiently good 
to take a housemaid's place and be obedient to her pastors 



"LA DAME AUX CAMELIAS." HI 

and masters, to slave from morn till night for a mere pit- 
tance, in addition to her virtue, which was ultimately to 
prove its own reward — the latter to consist of a home of her 
own, Avith a lot of squalling brats about her, where she would 
have had to slave as she had slaved before, without the 
monthly pittances hitherto doled out to her. She was not 
sufficiently good to see her marvellously beautiful face, her 
matchless graceful figure set off by a cambric cap and a calico 
gown, instead of having the first enhanced by the gleam of 
priceless jewels in her hair and the second wrapped in soft 
laces and velvets and satins ; but, for all that, she was not the 
common courtesan the goody-goody people have thought fit 
to proclaim her — the common courtesan, who, according to 
these goody-goody people, would have descended to her grave 
forgotten, but for the misplaced enthusiasm of a poetical 
young man, who was himself corrupted by the atmosphere 
in which he was born and lived afterwards. 

The sober fact is that Dumas fils did not idealize anything 
at all, and, least of all, Alphonsine Plessis' character. Though 
very young at the time of her death, he was then already much 
more of a philosopher than a poet. He had not seen half as 
much of Alphonsine Duplessis during her life as is commonly 
supposed, and the first idea of the novel was probably sug- 
gested to him, not by his acquaintance with her, but by the 
sensation her death caused among the Paris public, the female 
part of w^hich — almost without distinction — went to look at 
^ her apartment, to appraise her jewels and dresses, etc. " They 
would probably like to have had them on the same terms,'' 
said a terrible cynic. The remark must have struck young 
Dumas, in whose hearing it was said, or who, at any rate, had 
it reported to him ; for if we carefully look at all his earlier 
plays, Ave find the spirit of that remark largely pervading 
them. 

Alphonsine Plessis had probably learned even less in her 
girlhood than Lola Montes, but she had a natural tact, and 
an instinctive refinement which no education could have en- 
hanced. She never made grammatical mistakes, no coarse 
expression ever passed her lips. Lola Montes could not make 
friends; Alphonsine Plessis could not make enemies. She 
never became riotous like the other, not even boisterous ; for 
amidst the most animated scenes she was haunted by tlie sure 
knoAvledge that she would die young, and life, but for that 
knowledge, would have been very sweet to her. Amidst these 



112 AN EXGLISIIMAN IN PARIS. 

scenes, she would often sit and chat to me : she liked me, be- 
cause I never paid her many compliments, although I was 
but six years older than the most courted woman of her time. 
The story of her being provided for by a foreign nobleman 
because she was so like his deceased daughter, was not a piece 
of fiction on Dumas' part ; it was a positive fact. Alphonsine 
Plessis, after this provision was made for her, might have led 
the most retired existence ; she might, like so many demi- 
mondaines have done since, bought herself a country-house, 
re-entered " the paths of respectability," have had a pew in 
the parish church, been in constant communication with the 
vicar, prolonged her life by several years, and died in the 
odour of sanctity : but, notwithstanding her desperate desire 
to live, her very nature revolted at such self-exile. When 
Alexandre Dumas read the "Dame aux Camelias " to his 
father, the latter wept like a baby, but his tears did not drown 
the critical faculty. " At the beginning of the third act," he 
said afterwards, " I was wondering how Alexandre would get 
his Marguerite back to town without lowering her in the es- 
timation of the spectator. Because, if such a woman as he 
depicted was to remain true to nature — to her nature — and 
consequently able to stand the test of psychological analysis, 
she could not have borne more than two or three m^onths of 
such retirement. This does not mean that she would have 
severed her connection with Armand Duval, but he would 
have become ' un plat dans le menu ' after a little while, 
nothing more. The way Alexandre got out of the difficulty 
proves that he is my son every inch of him, and that, at the 
very outset of his career, he is a better dramatist than I am 
ever likely to be. But depend upon it, that if, in real life 
and with such a woman, le pere Duval had not interfered, 
la belle Marguerite would have taken the ' key of the street ' 
on some pretext — and that, notwithstanding the sale of her 
carriages, the pledging of her diamonds and her furs — in 
order not to worry the man she loved, for the time being, 
with money matters. Honestly speaking, it wanted my son's 
cleverness to make a piece out of Alphonsine Plessis' life. 
True, he was fortunate in that she died, which left him free 
to ascribe that death to any cause but the right one, namely, 
consumption. I know that he made use of it, but he took 
care to show the malady aggravated by Armand Duval's de- 
sertion of her, and this is the only liberty he took with the 
psychological, consequently scientific and logical, develop- 



THE GENEALOGY OF "LA DAME AUX CAMELIAS." 113 

ment of the play. People have compared his ^larguerite 
Gantier to Manon Lescaut, to Marion Delorme, and so forth : 
it JQst shows what they know about it. They might just as 
well compare Thiers to CromwelL Manon Lescaut, Marion 
Delorme, Cromwell, knew what they wanted : Marguerite 
Gautier and Thiers do not; both are always in search of 
Vinconmt^ the one in experimental politics, the other in ex- 
perimental love-making. Still, my son has been true to Na- 
ture ; but he has taken an episode showing her at her best. 
He was not bound to let the public know that the frequent 
recurrence of these love episodes, but always with a different 
partner, constitutes a disease wdiich is as well known to spe- 
cialists as the disease of drunken-ness, and for wdiich it is im- 
possible to find a cure. Messalina, Catherine II., and thou- 
sands of women have suffered from it. When they happen 
to be born in such exalted stations as these two, they buy 
men ; when they happen to be born in a lowly station and 
are attractive, they sell themselves ; when they are ugly and 
repulsive they sink to the lowest depths of degradation, or 
end in the padded cells of a mad-house, where no man dares 
come near them. Nine times out of ten the malady is heredi- 
tary, and I am certain that if we could trace the genealogy 
of xAlphonsine Plessis, we should find the taint either on the 
father's side or on the mother's, probably on the former's, 
but more probably still on both." * 

* The following is virtually a summary of an article by Count G. de 
Contades, in a French bibliographical periodical, Le Livre (Dec. 10, 1885), and 
shows how near Alexandre Dumas was to the truth. I have given it at great 
length. My excuse for so doing is the extraordinary popularity of Dumas' play 
witn all classes of playgoers. As a consequence, tliere is not a single modern 
play, with the exception of those of Shakespeare, the genesis of which has 
Deen so much commented upon. It is no exaga'cration to say that most edu- 
cated playgoei-s, not to mention professional students of the drama, have at 
some time or other expressed a wish to know something more of the real 
Marguerite Gautier's parentage and antecedents than is shown by Dumas, 
either in his play or in his novel, or than what they could gather from the 
partly apocryphal details given by her contemporaries. Dumas himself, in his 
preface to the play, says that she was a farm servant. He probably knew no 
more than that, nor did Alphonsine Plessis herself In after-years, the eminent 
dramatist had neither the time nor the inclination to search musty parish 
registers ; Count de Contades has done so for him. Here are the results, as 
briefly as possible, of his researches. Alphonsine Plessis' paternal grand- 
mother, "moitie mendiante et moitie prostituee," inhabited, a little less than a 
century ago, the small parish of Longe-sur-Maire, which has since become 
simply Longe in the canton of Briouze, arrondissement of Argentan (about 
thirty miles ^from Alenoon). She had been nicknamed "La Guenuchetonne," 
a rustic version of the archaic French word guen ippe (slattern ). Louis Descours, 
a kind of country clod who had entered tfiie priesthood without the least voca- 

9 



114 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

There were few of ns who, during Alphonsine Plessis' 
lifetime, were so interested in her as to have gone to the 
length of such a psychological analysis of her pedigree. 
Nevertheless, most men were agreed that she was no ordi- 



tion, and just because his people wished him to do so, becomes enamoured of 
" La Guenuchetonne," and early in January, 1790, the cure Philippe christea>< a 
male child, Avhich is registered as Marin Plessis, mother Louis-Renee Plessis, 
father unknown. That^ the father was known well enough is proved by the 
Christian name bestowed upon the babe, Marin, which was that of Louis 
Descours' father. This gallant adventure of the country priest was an open 
secret for miles around. 

Marin Plessis grew into a handsome fellow, and when about twenty took to 
travelling in the adjacent provinces of lower and upper Normandy with a pack 
of smallwares. Handsome and amiable besides, he was a welcome guest every- 
where, and soon became a great favourite with the female part of the Normandy 
peasantry. For a little while he flitted from one rustic beauty to another, until 
he was fairly caught by one more handsome than the rest, Marie Deshayes. 
She was not, perhaps, iiiimaculately virtuous, but, apart from her extraordinary 
personal attractions, she was something more than an ordinary peasant girl. 

Some sixty years before Marin Plessis' union with Marie Deshayes, there 
lived in the neighbourhood of Evreux a spinster lady of good descent, though 
not very well provided with worldly goods. She was comely and sweet-tem- 
pered enough, but then, as now, comeliness and a sweet temper do not count 
for much in the French matrimonial market, and least of all in the provincial 
one. Owing to the modesty of her marriage portion, she had no suitors for her 
hand, and, being of an exceedingly amorous disposition, she bestowed her 
affection where she could, " without regret, and without false shame," as the 
old French chronicler has it. 

The annals of the village — for, curiously enough, these annals do exist, 
though only in manuscripts — are commendably reticent about the exact num- 
ber and names of her lovers. It would seem that the author, a contemporary 
of Mdlle. Anne du Mesnil d'Argentelles and the great-grandfather of the pres- 
ent possessor of the notes, a gentleman near Bernay, was divided between the 
wish of not being too hard upon his neighbour, who was, after all, a gentle- 
woman, and the desire to leave a record of a peculiar phase of the country 
manners of those days to posterity. Be this as it may, Mdlle. d'Argentelles' 
swains, previous to the very last one, have been doomed to anonymous ob- 
scurity. But with the advent of Etienne Deshayes, the annalist becomes less 
reticent, he is considered worthy of being mentioned in full, perhaps as a re- 
ward for having finally "made an honest woman" of his inamorata. For that 
is the final upshot of the love-story between him and Mdlle. d'Argentelles, 
which, in its earlier stages, bears a 'certain resemblance to that between Jean- 
Jacques Rousseau and Madame de Warens, with this difference — that the JSor- 
mand Jean- Jacques is considerably older than his mistress. 

The children born of this marriage were very numerous. One of them, 
Louis-Deshayes, married a handsome peasant girl, Marie-Madeleine Marra, 
who appears to have been somewhat too intimate with a neighbouring squire, 
but who gave birth a few years after to a daughter, of whose paternity there 
could not 'be the smallest doubt, seeing that she grew up into a speakin^' like- 
ness of her maternal grandmother, the erstwiiile Mdlle. Anne du Alesnil 
d'Argentelles. Fate ought to have had a better lot in store for beautiful Marie 
Deshayes than a marriage with a poor pedlar like Marin Plessis ; but the latter 
was very handsome, and, notwithstanding the opposition of the family, she 
became Jiis wife. On the 15th of January, 1824, the child which was to be im- 
mortalized as "La Dame aux Camelias " saw the light, m a small village in 
Lower Kormandy.— Editor. 



THE REAL ALPHONSINE PLESSIS. J 15 

nary girl. Her candour about her early want of education 
increased the interest. " Twenty or twenty-five years ago," 
said Dr. Veron, one day, after Alphonsine Plessis had left 
the dinner table, "a woman of her refinement would not 
have been phenomenal in her position, because at that period 
the grisette, promoted to the rank of femme entretenue, had 
not made her appearance. The expression 'femme entre- 
tenue ' was not even known. Men chose their companions, 
outside marriage, from a different class ; they were generally 
women of education and often of good family who had made 
a faux pas, and, as such, forfeited the society and counte- 
nance of their equals who had not stumbled in that way, at 
any rate not in the sight of the world. I confess, Alphon- 
sine Plessis interests me very much. She is, first of all, the 
best-dressed woman in Paris ; secondly, she neither flaunts 
nor hides her vices ; thirdly, she is not always talking or 
hinting about money ; in short, she is a wonderful courte- 
san." 

The result of all this admiration was very favourable to 
Alexandre Dumas fils when he brought out his book about 
eighteen months after her death. It was in every one's 
hands, and the press kept whetting the curiosity of those 
who had not read it as yet with personal anecdotes about the 
heroine. In addition to this, the title was a very taking one, 
and, moreover, absolutely new ; for, though it was obvious 
enough from Alphonsine Plessis' habit of wearing white 
camellias the greater part of the year, no one had ever 
thought of applying it to her while she was alive; hence, 
the credit of its invention belongs decidedly to Dumas fils. 

I may return to the subject of " La Dame aux Camelias " 
in connection with the play ; meanwhile, I will say a few 
words of the only man among our set who objected to the 
title, " because it injures my own," as he put it ; namely, M. 
Lautour-Mezerai, who had been surnamed " L'Homme au 
Camellia ; " in the singular, from his habit of never appear- 
ing in public without that flower in his button-hole. And 
be it remembered that in those days, the flower was much 
more rare than it is at present, and consequently very expen- 
sive. The plagiarist, if there was one, must have been 
Alphonsine Plessis, for Dr. Veron, who was one of his oldest 
friends, did not remember having ever seen him 7niiuis the 
camellia, and theii friendship dated from the year 1831. It 
is computed that during the nineteen years Mezerai was in 



116 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Paris, previous to his departure for the South of France and 
afterwards for Algeria, in both of which provinces he fulfilled 
the functions of prefect, he must have spent no less than 
fifty thousand francs on his favourite floral ornament, for he 
frequently changed it twice a day, and its price, es^iecially 
in the thirties and earlier part of the forties, was not less 
than five francs. It is, therefore, not surprising that he re- 
sented the usurpation of his title. M. Lautour-Mezerai was 
one of the most elegant men I knew. He not only belonged 
to a very good provincial stock, but his family on both sides 
counted some eminent names in literature.* He was a most 
charming companion, exceedingly generous ; but he would 
not have parted with the flower in his button-hole for any 
consideration, not even to oblige his greatest friend, male or 
female. It was more than an ornament to him, he looked 
upon it as a talisman. He always occupied the same place 
at the Opera, in the balcony, or what we call the " dress- 
circle," and many a covetous glance from the brightest eyes 
was cast at the dazzling white camellia, standing out in bold 
relief against the dark blue coat, but neither glances nor 
direct requests had any elTect upon him. He became abso- 
lutely savage in his refusal when too hardly pressed, because, 
by his own admission, he was superstitious enough to believe 
that, if he went home without it, something terrible would 
happen to him during the night. 

M. Lautour-Mezerai was, however, something more than 
a mere man of fashion. To him belongs the credit of hav- 
ing founded — at any rate in France — the children's periodi- 
cal. For the comparatively small subscription of six francs 
per annum, thousands of little ones received every month a 
number of the Journal des Enfants^ stitched in blue paper, 
and with their own name on the wrapper. It flattered their 
pride to be treated like their elders by having their literature 
despatched to them in that way, and there is no doubt that 
this ingenious device contributed, to a certain extent, to the 
primary and enormous success of the undertaking. But M. 
Lautour-Mezerai was too refined a litterateur to depend upon 
such a mere trick, and a look at even the earlier numbers of 
the Journal des Enfants^ would prove conclusively that, in 
the way of amusing children while instructing them a little, 

* Curiously enough, he belonged to the same department, and died almost 
on tlie very spot where Marin Plessis was born.— Editor. 



A THEATRICAL MANAGER. II7 

notliing better lias been done since, wlietlier in France, Eng- 
land, or Germany. The editor and manager succeeded in 
grouping around him such men as Paul Lacroix (le bibliopliile 
Jacob) and Charles Nodier, both of whom have never been 
surpassed in making history attractive to young minds. 
Eniile Souvestre, Leon Gozlan, Eugene Sue, and even Alex- 
andre Dumas told them the most wonderful stories. Tlie 
men wlio positively kept the adult population of France 
spellbound by their stirring romances seemed to take a de- 
light in competing with women like Virginie Ancelot, the 
Duchesse d'Abrantes, and others on the latter's ground. As 
a consequence, it became the fashion to present the young 
ones on Xew Year's Day with a receipt for a twelvemonth's 
subscription, made out in their names, instead of the ever- 
lasting bag of sweets. At one time the circulation of Le 
Journal dcs Enfants was computed at 60,000, and M. Lau- 
tour-Mezerai was said to make 100,000 francs per annum out 
of it. 

In a former note, I incidentally mentioned Auguste 
Lireux. He is scarcely remembered by the present genera- 
tion of Frenchmen ; I doubt whether there are a hundred 
students of French literature in England who know his name, 
let alone his writings: yet he is worthy of being remembered 
by both. He had — what a great many French writers of 
talent, far greater than his own, essentially lack — humour. 
True, the latter was not subtle ; but it was rarely, if ever, 
coarse. The nearest approach to him among the journalists 
of the present day is M. Francisque Sarcey ; but the eminent 
dramatic critic has had a better education. Nevertheless, if 
Lireux had finished as he began, he would not be so entirely 
forgotten. Unfortunately for his fame, if not for his ma- 
terial welfare, he took it into his head to become a million- 
naire, and he almost succeeded ; at any rate, he died very 
well off, in a beautiful villa at Bougival. 

I remember meeting with Lireux almost immediately after 
he landed in Paris, at the end of '40 or the beginning of '41. 
He came, I believe, from Rouen ; though, but for his accent, 
he mig^n have come from Marseilles. Tall, well-built, with 
brown hair and beard and ruddy complexion, a pair of briglit 
eyes behind a pair of golden spectacles, very badly dressed, 
though his clothes were almost new, very loud and very rest- 
less, his broad-brimmed hat cocked on one side, he gave one 
the impression of what in Paris we used to call a " departe- 



118 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

mantcil oracle," He was that to a certain extent, still he was 
njt really pompous, and the feeling of discomfort one experi- 
enced at first soon wore off. He was not altogether unknown 
among the better class of journalists in the capital, for it ap- 
pears that he frequently contributed to the Paris papers from 
the provinces. He had a fair knowledge of the French drama 
theoretically, for he had never written a piece, and openly 
stated his intention never to do so. But in virtue of his dra- 
matic criticisms in several periodicals — which, in spite of the 
difference in education between the two men, read uncom- 
monly like the articles of M. Sarcey in the Temps — and his 
unwavering faith in his lucky star, he considered himself des- 
tined not only to lift the Odeon from the slough in which it 
had sunk, but to make it a formidable rival to the hou^ in 
the Rue de Richelieu. He had no ambition beyond that. The 
Odeon was really at its lowest depth Harel had enjoyed a 
subsidy of 130,000 francs, M. d'Epagny eleven years later had 
to content himself with less than half, and yet the authorities 
were fully cognizant of the necessity of a second Theatre- 
Franc^ais. Whether from incapacity or ill-luck, M. d'Epagny 
did not succeed in bringing back the public to the old house. 
The direction was offered then to M. Hippolyte Lucas, the 
dramatic critic of Le Siede^ and one of the best English schol- 
ars I have ever met with among the French, and, on his de- 
clining the responsibility, given to Lireux, who for the sake 
of making a point, exclaimed, " Directeur ! . . . au refus 
d'llippolyte Lucas ! " * 

It was a piece of bad taste on Lireux's part, because M. 
Lucas was his superior in every respect, though he would 
probably have failed where the other succeeded — at least for 
a while. Save for this mania of saying smart things in and 
out of season, Lireux was really a good-natured fellow, and 
we were all glad that he had realized his ambition. The vent- 
ure looked promising enough at the start. He got an excel- 
lent company together, comprising Bocage, Monrose, Gil- 
Peres, Maubant, Mdlles. Georges and Araldi, Madame Dorval, 
etc. ; and if, like young Bonaparte's troops, they were badly 
paid and wanted for everything, they worked with a will, be- 
cause, like Bonaparte, Lireux inspired them with confidence. 
He, on the other hand, knew their value, and on no pretext 

* An imitation of the line of Don Carlos in Hugo's " Hernani " : "Empe- 
reur ! . . . au refus de Frederic-le-Sawe ! " — Editor. 



LIREUX AND HIS PATRONS. 119 

would allow them to be ousted from the positions they had 
honourably won by their talents and hard work. Presump- 
tuous mediocrity, backed either by influence or intrigue, found 
him a stern adversary ; the intriguer got his answer in such a 
way as to prevent him from returning to the charge. One 
day an actor of reputed incapacity, Machanette, clainied the 
title-role in Moliere's " Misanthrope." 

" You have no one else to play Alceste," he said. 

" Yes, I have. I have got one of the checktakers," re- 
plied Lireux. 

Auguste Lireux was one of those managers the race of 
which began with Harel at the Porte Saint- Martin and Dr. 
Veron at the Opera. Duponchel, at the latter house, Mon- 
tigny at the Gymnase, Buloz and Arsene Houssaye at the 
Comedie-Fran9aise, endeavoured as far as possible to follow 
their traditions of liberality towards the public and their 
artists, and encouragement given to untried dramatists. It 
was not Lireux's fault that he did not succeed for any length 
of time. Of course, there is a ridiculous side to everything. 
During the terrible cholera visitation of 1832, Harel pub- 
lished a kind of statistics, showing that not a single one of 
the spectators had been attacked by the plague ; but all this 
cannot blind us to the support given to the struggling play- 
wright, Dumas, in the early part of his career. During the 
winter of 1841-'42, which was a severe one, Lireux sent foot- 
warmers to the rare audience that patronized him on a bit- 
terly cold night, " when tragedy still further chills the 
house " ; the little bit of charlatanism cannot disturb the fact 
of his having given one of the foremost dramatists of the day 
a chance with " La Cigue." I am alluding to the first piece 
of Emile Augier. 

This kind of thing tells with a general public, more so 
still with a public composed of generous-minded, albeit some- 
what riotous youths like those of the Quartier-Latin in the 
early forties. Gradually the latter found their way to the 
Odeon, " sinon pour voir la piece, alors pour entendre Lireux, 
qui est tou jours amusant " ; which, in plain language, meant 
that come what may they would endeavour to provoke Lireux 
into giving them a speech. 

Flattering as was this resolve on their jDart to Lireux's 
eloquence, the means they employed to encompass their end 
would have made the existence of an ordinary manager a bur- 
den to him. But Lireux was not an ordinary manager ; he 



120 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

possessed " the gift of the gab " to a marvellous degree : con- 
sequently he made it known that he would be happy at any 
time to address MM. les etudiants without putting them to 
the expense of apples and eggs on the evening of the per- 
formance, and voice-lozenges the next day, if they, MM. les 
etudiants, would in return respect his furniture and the 
dresses of his actors. The arrangement worked exceedingly 
well, and for four years the management and the student 
part of the audience lived in the most perfect harmony. 

Lireux did more than that, he forestalled their possible 
objections to a doubtful episode in a play. I remember the 
first night of "Jeanne de Naples." The piece had dragged 
fearfully. Lireux had made three different speeches during 
the evening, but he foresaw a riot at the end of the piece 
which no eloquence on his part would be able to quell. It 
appears — for we only found this out the next day — that the 
condemned woman, previous to being led to execution, had 
to deliver a monologue of at least a hundred and fifty or two 
hundred lines. The unhappy queen had scarcely begun, 
when a herculean soldier rushed on the stage, took her into 
his arms and carried her off by main force, notwithstanding 
her struggles. It was a truly sensational ending, and the 
curtain fell amidst deafening applause. It redeemed the 
piece ! 

Next day Lireux made his appearance at Tortoni's in the 
afternoon, and, as a matter of course, the production of the 
previous evening was discussed. 

" I cannot understand," said Roger de Beauvoir, " how a 
man with such evident knowledge of stagecraft as the author 
displayed in that denoument, could have perpetrated such an 
enormity as the whole of the previous acts." 

Lireux was fairly convulsed with laughter. " Do you really 
think that was his own invention ? " he asked. 

" Of course I do," was the reply. 

" Well, it is not. His denoument was a speech which 
would have taken about twenty minutes, at the end of which 
the queen is tamely led off between the soldiers. I know 
what would have been the result : the students would have 
simply torn up the benches and Heaven knows what else. 
You know that if the gas is left burning, if only a moment, 
after twelve, there is an extra charge irrespective of the quan- 
tity consumed. I looked at my watch when she began to 
speak her lines. It was exactly thirteen minutes to twelve ; 



BALZAC AGAIN. 121 

she might have managed to get to the end by twelve, but it 
was doubtful. What was not doubtful was the roAV that would 
have ensued, and the time it w^ould have taken me to cope 
with it. My mind was made up there and then. I selected 
the biggest of the supers, told him to go and fetch her, and 
you know the rest." 

There were few theatrical managers in those days who 
escaped the vigilance of Balzac. Among the many schemes 
he was for ever hatching for benefiting mankind and making 
his own fortune, there was one which can not be more fitly 
described than in the Anierican term of " making a corner " ; 
only that particular " corner " was to be one in plays. 

About two years before the advent of Lireux, and when 
the house at Ville d'Avray, of which I have spoken elsewhere, 
was completed, a party of literary men received an invitation 
to spend the Sunday there. It was not an ordinary invita- 
tion, but a kind of circular-letter, the postscriptum to which 
contained the following words : " M. de Balzac will make an 
important communication." Leon Gozlan, Jules Sandeau, 
Louis Desnoyers, Henri Monnier, and those familiar with 
Balzac's schemes, knew pretty well what to expect ; and when 
Lassailly, one of the four men Avhose nose vied with the 
legendary one of Bouginier, confirmed their apprehensions 
that it was a question of making their fortunes, thoy resigned 
themselves to their fate. Jules Sandeau, who w^as gentleness 
itself, merely observed with a sigh that it was the fifteenth 
time Balzac had proposed to make him a millionnaire ; Henri 
Monnier offered to sell his share of the prospective profits for 
7 francs, 50 centimes ; Leon Gozlan suggested that their host 
might have discovered a diamond mine, whereupon Balzac, 
who had just entered the room, declared that a diamond mine 
was nothing to it. He was simply going to monopolize the 
whole of the Paris theatres. He exposed the plan in a mag- 
nificent speech of two hours' duration, and would have con- 
tinued for two hours more had not one of the guests reminded 
him that it was time for dinner. 

" Dinner," exclaimed Balzac ; " why, I never thought of 
it" 

Luckily there was a restaurant near, and the future 
millionnaires and their would-be benefactor were enabled to 
sit down to " a banquet quite in keeping, not only w^ith the 
magnificent prospects just disclosed to them," but wdth the 
splendour actually surrounding them," as Mery expressed it. 



122 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

For it sliould be added that the sumptuous dwelling 
which was to be, was at that moment absolutely bare of 
furniture, save a few deal chairs and tables. The garden 
was a wilderness, intersected by devious paths, sloping so 
suddenly as to make it impossible to keep one's balance with- 
out the aid of an Alpenstock or the large stones imbedded in 
the soil, but only temporarily, by the considerate owaier. 
One day, Dutacq, the publisher, having missed his footing, 
rolled as far as the wall inclosing the domain, without his 
friends being able to stop him. 

The garden, like everything else connected with the 
schemes of Balzac, was eventually to become a gold-mine. 
Part of it was to be built upon, and converted into a dairy ; 
another part was to be devoted to the culture of the pine- 
apple and the Malaga grape, all of which would yield an 
income of 30,000 francs annually " at least " — to borrow 
Balzac's own words. 

The apartments had been furnished in the same grandiose 
way — theoretically. The walls were, as I have already re- 
marked, absolutely bare, but on their plaster, scarcely dry, 
were magnificent inscriptions of what was to be. They were 
mapped out regardless of expense. On that facing the 
north there was a splendid piece of thirteenth-century 
Flemish tapestry — in writing, of course, flanked by two 
equally priceless pictures by Raphael and Titian. Facing 
these, one by Rembrandt, and, underneath, a couch, a couple 
of arm-chairs, aiul six ordinary ones, Louis XV., and uphol- 
stered in Aubusson tapestry — subjects, Lafontaine's Fables. 
Opposite again, a monumental mantel-piece in malachite (a 
present of Czar Kicholas, who had expressed his admiration 
of Balzac's novels), with bronzes and clock by De Gouttieres. 
The place on the ceiling was marked for a chandelier of 
Venetian glass, and in the dining-room a square was drawn 
on the carpetless floor for the capacious sideboard, whereon 
would be displayed " the magnificent family plate." 

Pending the arrival of the furniture, the building of the 
dairy, hothouses, and vineries, the guests had to sit on hard 
wooden chairs, to eat a vile dinner, supplemented, however, 
by an excellent dessert. Balzac was very fond of fruit, and 
especially of pears, of which he always ate an enormous 
quantity. The wine was, as a rule, very inferior, but on that 
particular occasion Balzac's guests discovered that their 
host's imagination could even j^lay him more cruel tricks in 



BALZAC'S VISIONS. 123 

the seleotion of his vintages than it played him in his pursuit 
of financial scliemes and the furnishing of his house. 

When the fruit was placed upon the table, Balzac assumed 
a most solemn air. " Gentlemen," he said, " I am going to 
give you some Chateau-Lafitte, such as you have never tasted 
— such as it has been given to few mortals to taste. I wish 
you to sip it carefully — I might almost say reverently, be- 
cause the opportunity may not repeat itself in our lives." 

Wherewith the guests' glasses were filled ; all of them 
made horrible faces, for it was abominable stufi", but one 
more outspoken than the rest gave his opinion there and 
then— 

" This may be ' Chateau de la Eue Lafitte,' but it is 
enough to give one the colic."" 

Any one else but Balzac would have been horribly discon- 
certed ; he, on the contrary, did not budge. " Yes," he said 
proudly, "you are right in one respect; this ambrosial 
nectar comes in a straight line from the Eue Lafitte, for 
it is Baron James de Rothschild who made me a present of 
two barrels, for which I am profoundly grateful. Drink, 
gentlemen, drink, and be thankful also." 

Those who would consider this a clever piece of acting on 
Balzac's part, would be greatly mistaken. His imagination 
at times affected his palate as well as his other organs, 
and at that moment he was under the distinct impression 
that he was oliering his guests one of the rarest vintages on 
record. 

I have endeavoured hitherto to digress as little as possible 
in ray recollections, though their very nature made it diffi- 
cult. In this instance, digression was absolutely necessary 
to convey an idea of the shock which would naturally result 
from the contact of two such brains as those of Balzac and 
Lireux ; for it was not long after the young manager's ad- 
vent to the Odeon that Balzac found his way to his sanctum. 
The play he offered him was " Les Ressources de Quinola." 
Strange as it may seem to us, even as late as '42, Balzac's 
name as a novelist did not rank first in the list with the 
general public, still it is very doubtful whether any young 
manager would have refused a stage play by him ; conse- 
quently, Lireux accepted "Les Ressources de Quinola" 
nlmost without fear. It is not to the purpose to say that it 
was a bad play, and that he ought to have known better; it 
has been amply proved by now that the most experienced 



124 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

manager is not infallible ; but it is a moot point wliether the 
greatest masterpiece would have succeeded with the tactics 
adopted by Balzac to insure its success. The following may 
appear like a scene from a farcical comedy ; I can vouch for 
the truth of every word of it, because I had it from the lips 
of Lireux himself, who, after all, was the heaviest sufferer by 
Balzac's incurable greed, or, to put it as leniently as one can, 
by his constant chase after a capital stroke of business. His 
resolve to pack the house on the first night was not due to a 
desire to secure a favourable reception from a friendly audi- 
ence, but to the determination to secure " a lump sum," let 
come what might. In Balzac are found the two contradictory 
traits of the money-grubber and the spendthrift. 

The scene alluded to just now, took place when the re- 
hearsals were far advanced; the author and the manager 
were discussing the invitations to be sent out, etc. All at 
once Balzac declared that he would have none but Knights 
of the Order of Saint-Louis in the pit. " I am agreeable," 
replied Lireux, " provided you ferret them out."* 

" I'll see to that," said Balzac. " Pray go on. What is 
the next part of the house ? " 

" Orchestra stalls." 

" Nothing but peers of France there." 

" But the orchestra stalls will not hold them all. Monsieur 
de Balzac." 

" Those who cannot find room in the house will have to 
stand in the lobbies," said Balzac, iniperturbably. 

"Stage boxes?" continued Lireux. 

" They will be reserved for the Court." 

" Stage boxes on the first tier ? " 

" For the ambassadors and plenipotentiaries." 

" The open boxes on the ground floor ? " 

* It shows that Lireux was not very familiar with the royal edicts atf'ecting 
that order, and that Balzac himself exacrgerated the social and monetary im- 
portance of its wearers. For, though Louis-Philippe at his accession suppressed 
the order, not less than twelve thousand new knights had been created by his 
two immediate predecessors. They, the recently created knights, were allowed 
to retain their honours and pensions; but, even "before the fall of the Bourbons, 
the distinction had lost much of its prestige. After the Battle of Navarino, 
Admiral de Kigny, soliciting rewards for his officers who had distinguished 
themselves, tacitly ignored tlie order of Saint-Louis in favour of that of the 
Legion of Honour. The order, as founded by Louis XIV. in 1693, was only 
available to officers and Catholics. Several modifications wei'C introduced 
afterwards in its statutes. The (Jrder of Saint-Louis and tliat of " Military 
Merit" were the only two recognized by the Constituent Assembly of 1789; 
but the Convention suppressed the former, only leaving the latter. — Editob. 



ANGLOPHOBIA ON THE FRENCH STAGE. 125 

" For the wives and families of the ambassadors." 

"Upper circle?" enumerated Lireux, not a. muscle of his 
face moving. 

" For the deputies and grand officers of State." 

" Third circle ? " enumerated Lireux. 

" The heads of the great banking and financial establish- 
ments." 

" The galleries and amphitheatre?" 

"A carefully selected, but varied, bourgeoisie," wound up 
Balzac. 

Lireux, who was a capital mimic, re-enacted the scene for 
us four-and-twenty hours after it had been enacted in his 
own room, and while he was still under the impression that 
it was merely a huge joke on Balzac's part. He soon discov- 
ered, however, that the latter was terribly in earnest, when, a 
few days later, Balzac claimed the whole of the seats for the 
first three nights, on the penalty of withdrawing his piece 
there and then, Lireux foolishly submitted, the box office 
was closed; every one applying for tickets was referred to 
Balzac himself, or rather to the shady individual who had 
egged him on to this speculation. The latter, at the first ap- 
plication, had run up the prices ; the public felt disgusted, 
and when the curtain rose upon " Les Ressources de Quinola," 
the house was almost empty. Thereupon a batch of nonde- 
scripts was sent into the streets to dispose of the tickets at 
any price; the bait was indignantly rejected, and the curtain 
fell amidst violent hisses. I repeat, a masterpiece would have 
failed under such circumstances; but the short run of the 
revival, almost a quarter of a century later at the Vaudeville, 
proved that the piece was not even an ordinary money- 
drawing one. It only kept the bills for about nine or ten 
days. 

Lireux was more fortunate with several other pieces, no- 
tably with that of Leon Gozlan, known to students of the 
French drama as " La Main Droite et la Main Gauche," but 
which originally bore the title of " II etait une Fois un Roi et 
une Reine." There could be no doubt about its tendency in 
its original form ; it was nothing less than an indictment for 
bigamy both against Queen Victoria and her Consort ; and 
the authorities had to insist not only upon the change of 
title and the names of the dramatis perso7i(B^ but upon the 
action being shifted from London to Stockholm. The author 
and manager had to comply ; but the public, who had got 



126 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

wind of the affair, crowded tlie house every niglit in order to 
read between the Hnes. 

One of my great sources of amusement for many years 
has been the perusal of political after-dinner speeches, and 
political leaders in the English papers, especially when the 
speakers and writers have endeavoured to lay stress upon the 
cordial relations between the French and the English, upon 
the friendly feelings guiding their actions on both sides. I 
am putting together these notes nearly fourteen years after 
the conclusion of the Franco-German War, nearly three 
quarters of a century after Waterloo. There is not a single 
Frenchman, however Chauvinistic, who ever thinks, let alone 
talks, of avenging Napoleon's defeat by Wellington ; while, 
on the other hand, there is not a single Frenchman, however 
unpatriotic, who does not dream now and then of wiping out 
the humiliation suffered at Sedan. Well, in spite of the 
almost entire oblivion of the one disaster, and the poignant 
recollection of the other, the French of to-day -hate the 
English more than the Germans; or — let me put it more 
correctly — they hate the Germans, they despise us. Nothing 
that we can do will ever remove this dislike of us. 

It has been thus as long as I can remember ; no royal 
visits, no exchange of so-called international courtesies will 
alter the feeling. It is ready to burst forth, the smallest 
provocation or fancied one will set it ablaze. During the 
forties there were a good many real or imaginary provoca- 
tions on the part of England, and, as a consequence, the 
hostile feeling against her broke forth where it is almost 
always sure to break forth first in France — on the stage and 
in song. After " La Main Droite et la Main Gauche," came 
Halevy's opera of " Charles VI." It is but fair to say that 
the Government did all it could to stem the tide, but, not- 
withstanding its positive orders to modify the chorus of the 
famous war song in the first act, the song was henceforth re- 
garded as a patriotic hymn. Nor did the visit of the Queen 
to Louis- Philippe at Eu, in 1843, effect much improvement 
in this state of things ; and, as a matter of course, we on the 
English side of the Channel retaliated the skits, etc., though 
I do not think we took them au grand serieux. When, in 
January, '44, I went to London for a few days, I found the 
Christrnas pantomime of " King Pippin " in full swing at 
Drury Lane. I well remember a scene of it, laid in the shop 
of a dealer in plaster figures. Two of these represented 



ANGLOPHOBIA ON THE ENGLISH STAGE. 127 

respectively the King of France and tlie Queen of Great 
Britain and Ireland. At a given moment, the two statues 
became animated, drew close to one another, and exchanged 
the most profuse salutations. But meanwhile, at the back of 
tlie stage, the Gallic cock and the British lion (or leopard) 
assumed a threatening attitude, and at each mark of affection 
between the two royal personages, shook their heads violently 
and seemed to want desperately to come to close quarters. 
The audience applauded vociferously, and it was very evident 
to me that neither in Paris nor in London the two nations 
shared the entente cordiale of their rulers. 



128 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Rachel and some of her fellow-actors — Eachel's true character — Her s-rcediness 
and spitefulness — Her vanity and her wit— Her powers of fjiscination— The 
cost of being fascinated by her — Her manner of levying toll — Some of her 
victims, Comte Duchatel and Dr. Veron — Tlie story of "her guitar— A little 
transaction between her and M. Fould— Her supposed charity and gener- 
osity — Ten tickets for a charity concert — How she made them into twenty 
— How she could have made them into a liundred — Baron Taylor puzzleci 
— Her manner of giving presents — Beauvallet^s precaution with regard to 
one of her gifts — Alexandre Dumas the younger, wiser or perhaps not so 
wise in his generation — Kachel as a raconteuse — The story of her debut at 
the Gymnase — What Rachel would have been as an actor instead of an 
actress — Her comic genius — Rachel's mother — What became of Rachel's 
money — Mama Felix as a pawnljroker — Rachel's trinkets— Two curious 
bracelets — Her first appearance before Nicholas I. — A dramatic recital in 
the open air — Rachel's opinion of the handsomest man in Europe— Rachel 
and bamson — Her obligations to him — How she repays them — How she 
goes to Berryer to be coached in the fable of "The Two Pigeons" — An 
anecdote of Berryer — Rachel's fear of a " warm reception " on the first night 
of " Adrienne Lecouvreur " — How she averts the danger — Samson as a man 
and as an actor— Petticoat-revolts at the Comedie-Fran^aise — Samson and 
Regnier as buffers — Their diflfereut ways of pouring oil upon the troubled 
waters — Mdlle. Sylvanie Plessy — A parallel between her and Sarah Bern- 
hardt — Samson and Regnier's pride m their profession — Tlie difterent char- 
acter of that pride — "Apollo with a bad tailor, and who dresses without a 
looking-glass" — Samson gives a lesson in declamation to a procureur- 
imperial — The secret of Regnier's greatness as an actor — A lesson at the 
Conservatoire — Regnier on ''make-up" — Regnier's opinion of genius on 
the stage — A motof Augustine Brohan — Giovanni, the wigmaSer of the 
Comedie-Fran^aise — His pride in his profession — M. Ancessy, the musical 
director, and his three wigs. 

There were few authors of m}^ time who came in contact 
with Rachel without writing about her ; there were abso- 
hitely none who have represented her in her true character. 
Either her genius blinded them to her faults, or else they 
were content to perpetuate the popular belief in her amia- 
bility, good nature, generosity, etc. The fact is, that Rachel 
off the stage was made of very ordinary clay. She had few 
of the good qualities of her race, and a good many of the 
bad ones; she was greedy to a degree, and could be very 
spiteful. All these drawbacks, in the eyes of most of her 
biographers, were redeemed by her marvellous tragic abilities 



RACHEL AND SOME OF HER FELLOW-ACTORS. 129 

on the stage, by a wonderful " gift of the gab," by a " happy- 
go-kicky," " hail-fellow, well-met " manner off the stage to 
those whom she liked to propitiate. Nevertheless, there 
were times when she had not a single friend at the Comedie- 
rran9aise, and though her champions attributed this hostil- 
ity to jealousy of her great gifts, a moment's consideration 
would show us that such a feeling could scarcely have in- 
fluenced the men who to a great extent shared her histrionic 
triumphs, viz., Beauvallet, Eegnier, Provost, Samson, and 
least of all the latter. Still, all these would have willingly 
kept her out of the Comedie-rran9aise after she had left it 
in a huff. She was difficult to get on with ; her modesty, 
assumed in everyday life, was a sham, for woe to the host 
who, deceived by it, did not at once make her the queen of 
the entertainment ! And, in reality, nothing in her war- 
ranted such a temporary elevation. She was witty in her 
way and after her kind — that is, she had the quick-witted- 
ness of the French woman who is not an absolute fool, and 
who has for many years rubbed elbows with everything dis- 
tinguished in art and literature. Notwithstanding this inti- 
macy, I am doubtful whether she had ever read, let alone 
appreciated, any of the masterpieces by the writers of her 
own days that did not directly bear upon her profession. I 
exclude fiction — I mean narrative fiction, and especially that 
of a sensational kind, of which she was probably as fond as 
the meanest concierge and most romantic milliner-girl. 

Nevertheless, provided one did not attempt to analyze it, 
the power of fascinating the coldest interlocutor was there. 
To their honor be it said, her contemporaries, especially the 
men, rarely made such an attempt at analysis. They ap- 
plauded all she said (off and on the stage), they tolerated all 
she did, albeit that they paid the cost of many of her so-called 
" amiable tricks," which were mainly so many instances of 
greed and nothing else. One evening she was dining at 
Comte Duchatel's, the minister of Louis-Philippe. The ta- 
ble was positively laden with flowers, but Rachel did not care 
much about them ; what she wanted was the splendid silver 
centre-piece. But she was too clever to unmask her batteries 
at once, so she began by admiring the contents, then at last 
she came to the principal point. The host was either in one 
of his generous or foolish moods, and made her a present of 
it there and then. Rachel knew, though, that even with a 
grand seigneur like Comte Duchatel, there are " les lende- 

10 



130 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

mains de I'entliousiasme," especially when he is a married 
man, whose wife does not willingly submit to have her home 
stripped of its art-treasures. The tragedienne came in a 
hackney cab ; the comte offered to send her back in his car- 
riage. She struck the iron while it was hot. " Yes, that 
will do admirably ; there will be no fear of my being robbed 
of your present, which I had better take with me." " Per- 
fectly, mademoiselle," replied the comte ; " but you will send 
me back my carriage, w^on't you ? " 

Dr. Veron was despoiled with even less ceremony. Hav- 
ing taken a fancy to some silver saucers or cups in which the 
proprietor of the Constitutionnel offered ices to his visitors, 
she began by pocketing one, and never rested until she had 
the whole of the set. In short, everything was fish to her 
net. She made her friends give her bibelots and knick- 
knacks of no particular value, to which she attached some 
particular legend — absolute inventions for the greatest part 
— in order to sell them for a thousand times their original 
cost. One day she noticed a guitar at the studio of one of 
her familiars. " Give me that guitar ; people will think it is 
the one with which I earned my living on the Place Royale 
and on the Place de la Bastille." And as such it was sold 
by her to M. Achille Fould for a thousand louis. The great 
financier nearly fell into a fit when the truth was told to him 
at Rachel's death ; he, in his turn, having wanted to " do a 
bit of business." In this instance no Christian suffered, be- 
cause buyer and vendor belonged to the same race. Of 
course the panegyrists of Rachel, when the story came to 
their ears, maintained that the thousand louis were employed 
for some charitable purpose, without, however, revealing the 
particular quarter whither they went; but those who judged 
Rachel dispassionately could not even aver that her charity 
began at home, because, though she never ceased complain- 
ing of her brother's and her sisters' extravagance, both 
brother and sisters could have told very curious tales about 
the difficulty of making her loosen her purse-strings for even 
the smallest sums. As for Rachel's doing good by stealth 
and blushing to find it fame, it was all so much fudge. Con- 
trary to the majority of her fellow-professionals, in the past 
as well as the present, she even grudged her services for a 
concert or a performance in aid of a deserving object, al- 
though she was not above swelling her OAvn hoard by such 
entertainments. 



HER SUPPOSED CHARITY. 131 

The following instance, for the absolute truth of which I 
can vouch, is a proof of what I say. One day the celebrated 
Baron Ta3^1or, who had been the director of the Comedie- 
Fran9aise, came to solicit her aid for a charity concert ; I am 
not certain of the object, but believe it was in aid of the 
Christians in Persia or China. The tickets were to be a 
hundred francs each. Sontag, Alboni, Rosine Stoltz, Mario, 
Lablache, Vieuxtemi^s, and I do not know how many more 
celebrated artists had promised their services. 

It was in 1850 when M. Arsene Houssaye was her di- 
rector, and I am particular about giving the year, because 
Rachel refused on the pretext that her director would never 
give her leave to appear on any other stage. Now, it so 
happened that no woman ever had a more devoted friend 
and chivalrous champion than Rachel had in Arsene Hous- 
saye. His friendship for her was simply idolatry, and I 
verily belie v^e that if she had asked him to stand on his 
head to please her, he would have done so, at the risk of 
making himself supremely ridiculous — he who feared ridi- 
cule above everything, who was one of the most sensible men 
of his tiaie, who was and is the incarnation of good-nature, 
to whom no one in distress or difficulties ever appealed in vain. 

Baron Taylor argued all this, but Rachel remained in- 
flexible. " I am very sorry," he said at last, rising to go, 
" because I am positive that your name on the bill would 
have made a difference of several thousand francs in the 
receipts." 

" Oh, if you only want my name," was the answer, " you 
may have it ; you can make an apology at the eleventh hour 
for my absence on the score of sudden indisposition — the 
public at charity concerts are used to that sort of thing ; 
besides, you will have so many celebrities that it will make 
very little difference. By-the-by " — as he was at the door — 
" I think my name is worth ten or twenty tickets." Taylor 
knew Rachel too well to be in the least surprised at the de- 
mand, and left ten tickets on the mantelpiece. 

That same afternoon he met Count Walewski, and as a 
matter of course asked him to take some tickets. 

"Very sorry, cher baron, but I have got ten already. 
You see, poor Rachel did not know very well how to get rid 
of the two hundred you burdened her with as a lady pa- 
troness ; so she wanted me to have twenty, but I settled the 
matter with ten. As it is, it cost me a thousand francs." 



132 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Taylor did not say another word — he probably could not ; 
he was struck dumb with astonishment at the quickness with 
which Eachel had converted the tickets into money. But 
what puzzled him still more was the fact of her having 
offered Walewski double the quantity of tickets he had given 
her. Where had she got the others from ? He was coming 
to the conclusion that she had offered twenty in order to 
place ten, when he ran against Comte Le Hon, the husband 
of the celebrated Mdlle. Musselmans, the erstwhile Belgian 
ambassador to the court of Louis-Philippe, who averred 
frankly that he was the father of a family, though he had no 
children of his own. 

Taylor thought he would try another chance, and was 
met with the re^^ly, " Cher baron, I am very sorry, but I 
have just taken five tickets from Mdlle. Eachel. It ap- 
pears that she is a lady patroness, and that they burdened 
her with two hundred ; fortunately, she told me, people 
were exceedingly anxious to get them, and these were the 
last five." 

" Then she had two hundred tickets after all," said Baron 
Taylor to himself, making up his mind to find out who had 
been before him with Eachel. But no one had been before 
him. The five tickets sold to Comte Le Hon were five of the 
ten she had sold to Comte Walewski. When the latter had 
paid her, she made him give her five tickets for herself and 
family, or rather for her four sisters and herself. Of Comte 
Le Hon she only took toll of one, which, wonderful to relate, 
she did not sell."^ This was Eachel's way of bestirring herself 
in the cause of charity. 

" Look at the presents she made to every one," say the 
panegyrists. They forget to mention that an hour afterwards 
she regretted her generosity, and from that moment she never 
left oft scheming how to get the thing back. Every one 
knew this. Beauvallet, to whom she gave a magnificent 
sword one day, instead of thanking her, said, "I'll have a 
chain put to it, mademoiselle, so as to fasten it to the wall of 
my dressing-room. In that way I shall be sure that it will 
not disappear during my absence." Alexandre Dumas the 
younger, to whom she made a present of a ring, bowed low 
and placed it back on her finger at once. " Allow me to pre- 
sent it to you in my turn, mademoiselle, so as to prevent you 
asking for it." She did not say nay, but carried the matter 
with one of her fascinatiug smiles. " It is most natural to 



THE STORY OF A FAILURE. 133 

take back what one has given, because what one has given 
was dear to us," she replied. 

Between '46 and '53 I saw a great deal of Rachel, generally 
in the green-room of the Comedie-Fran9aise, which was by 
no means the comfortable or beautiful apartment people 
imagine, albeit that even in those days the Comedie had a 
collection of interesting pictures, busts, and statues worthy 
of being housed in a small museum. The chief ornament of 
the room was a large glass between the two windows, but if 
the apartment had been as bare as a barn, the conversation of 
Rachel would have been sufficient to make one forget all 
about its want of decoration ; for, with the exception of the 
elder Dumas, I have never met any one, either man or woman, 
who exercised the personal charm she did. I have been told 
since that Bismarck has the same gift. I was never sufficiently 
intimate with the great statesman to be able to judge, having 
only met him three or four times, and under conditions that 
did not admit of fairly testing his powers in that respect, but 
I have an idea that the charm of both lay in their utter indif- 
ference to the effect produced, or else in their absolute con- 
fidence of the result of their simplicity of diction. Rachel's 
art of telling a story, if art it was, reminded one of that of 
the chroniclers of the Niebelungen ; for notwithstanding her 
familiarity with Racine and Corneille, her vocabulary was ex- 
ceedingly limited, and her syntax, if not her grammar, off 
the stage, not always free from reproach. 

I do not pretend, after the lapse of so many years, to give 
these stories in hei own language, or all of them ; there aVe a 
few, however, worth the telling, apart from the fascination 
with which she invested them. 

One evening she said to me, " Do you know Poirson ? " 
I had known Poirson when he was director of the Gym- 
6> ' nase. He afterwards always invited me to his soirees, one of 
which, curiously enough, was given on the Sunday before 
the Revolution of '48. So I said, " Yes, I know Poirson." 
" Has he ever told you whv he did not re-enofasre me ? " 
"Never." ^ ^^ 

" I'll tell you. People said it was because I did not suc- 
ceed in ' La Vendeenne ' of Paul Duport ; but that was not 
the cause. It was something much more ridiculous ; and 
now that I come to think of it, I am not sure that I ought 
to tell you, for you are an Englishman, and you will be 
shocked." 



134 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

I was not shocked, I was simply con\Tilsed with laughter^ 
for Rachel, not content with telling the story, got np, and, 
gradually drawing to the middle of the room, enacted it. It 
Avas one of those ludicrous incidents that happen sometimes 
on the stage, which no amount of foresight on the part of 
the most skilful and conscientious manager or actor can pre- 
vent, but which almost invariably ruins the greatest master- 
piece. There were about eight or nine actors and actresses 
in the room — Regnier, Samson, Beauvallet, etc. It was 
probably the most critical audience in Europe, but every one 
shook, and Mdlle. Anais Aubert went into a dead faint. 
Regnier often averred that if Rachel had been a man, she 
Avould have been the greatest comic actor that ever lived ; 
and it is not generally known that she once played Dorine in 
" Tartuffe," and set the whole of the house into a perfect 
roar ; but on that evening I became convinced that Rachel, 
in addition to her tragic gifts, was the spirit of Aristopha- 
nesque comedy personified. I am afraid, however, that I 
cannot tell the story, or even hint at it, beyond mentioning 
that Poirson is reported to have said that Rachel did not 
want a stage-manager, but a nurse to take care of her. The 
criticism was a cruel one, though justified by appearances. 
It was Mama Felix, and not her daughter, who was to blame. 
The child — she was scarcely more than that — had hurt her- 
self severely, and instead of keeping her at home, she sent 
her to the theatre, " poulticed all over," as Rachel expressed 
it afterwards. 

Mama Felix was the only one wdio was a match for her 
famous daughter in money matters. What the latter did with 
the enormous sums of money she earned has always been a 
mystery. As I have already said, they were not sjDent in 
charity. Nowadays, whatever other theatres may do, the 
Comedie-Fran9aise dresses its pensionnaires as well as its " 
societaires from head to foot; it pays the bootmaker's as 
well as the wigmaker's bill, and the laundress's also. Speak- 
ing of the beginning of her career, which coincided with the 
end of Rachel's, Madeleine Brohan, whose language was 
often more forcible than elegant, remarked, " Dans ma 
jeunesse, on nous mettait toutes nues sur la scene ; nous 
etions assez jolies pour cela." But Rachel's costumes varied 
so little throughout her career as to have required but a 
small outlay on her part. Nor could her ordinary dresses 
and furniture, which I happened to see in April, 1858, when ^ 



HER MONETARY AFFAIRS. I35 

they were sold by public auction at her apartments in the 
Place Royale, have made a considerable inroad on her earn- 
ings. The furniture was commonplace to a degree ; such 
pictures and knickknacks as were of value had been given to 
her, or acquired in the manner I have already described ; the 
laces and trinkets were, undoubtedly, not purchased with 
her own money. It is said that her brother Raphael was a 
spendthrift. He may have been, but he did not spend his 
celebrated sister's money ; of that I feel certain. Then what 
became of it? I am inclined to think that Mdlle. Rachel 
dabbled considerably in stocks, and that, notwithstanding 
her shrewdness and sources of information, she was the 
victim of people cleverer than she was. At any rate, one 
thing is certain — she was nearly always hard up; and, after 
having exhausted the good will of all her male acquaintances 
and friends, compelled to appeal to her mother, who had 
made a considerable hoard for her other four sisters, and 
perhaps also for her scapegrace son ; for, curiously enough, 
with Mama Felix every one of hei children was a goddess or 
god, except the goddess. This want of appreciation on the 
mother's part reminds me of a story told to me by Meison- 
nier. His granddaughter, on her fifteenth or sixteenth birth- 
day, had a very nice fan given to her. The sticks were ex- 
quisitely carved in ivory, and must have cost a pretty tidy 
sum, but the fan itself, of black gauze, was absolutely plain. 
The donoi probably intended the grandfather's art to en- 
hance the value of the present, and the latter was about to 
^do so, when the young lady stopped him with the cry, " Voila 
qu'il va me gater mon eventail avec ses mannequins ! " The 
irony of non-appreciation by one's nearest and dearest could 
no further go. 

Mama Felix, then, was very close-fisted, and would never 
lend her daughter any money, except on very good security, 
namely, on her jewels. In addition to this, she made her sign 
an undertaking that if not redeemed at a certain date they 
would be forfeited ; and forfeited they were, if the loan and 
interest were not forthcoming at the stipulated time, not- 
withstanding the ravings of Rachel. This would probably 
account for the comparatively small quantity of valuable 
jewelery found after her death. 

Some of the ornaments I have seen her wear had an 
artistic value utterly apart from their cost, others were so 
commonplace and such evident imitations as to have been 



136 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

declined by the merest grisette. One day I noticed round 
her wrist a joeculiar bracelet. It was composed of a great 
number of rings, some almost priceless, others less valuable 
but still very artistic, others again possessing no value what- 
soever, either artistically or otherwise. I asked her to take it 
off and found it to be very heavy, so heavy that I remarked 
upon it. " Yes," she replied, " I cannot wear two of the 
same weight, so I am obliged to wear the other in my 
pocket." And out came the second, composed of nearly 
double the number of rings of the first. I was wondering 
where all those rings came from, but I refrained from asking 
questions. I was enabled to form my own conclusions a 
little while afterwards, in the following way : 

While we were still admiring the bracelet, Rachel took 
from her finger a plain gold hoop, in the centre of which 
was an imperial eagle of the same metal. " This Avas given 
to me by Prince Louis Xapoleon," she said, " on the occasion 
of my last journey to London. He told me that it was a 
souvenir from his mother, and that he would not have parted 
with it to any one else but me." 

I cannot remember the exact date of this conversation, 
but it must have been shortly after the Revolution, when the 
future emperor had just landed in France. About three or 
four weeks afterwards we Avere talking to Augustine Brohan, 
who had just returned from London, where she had fulfilled 
an engagement of one or two months. Rachel was not there 
that night, but some one asked her if she had seen Prince 
Louis in London. " Yes," she replied ; " he was going away, 
and he gave me a present before he went." Thereupon she* 
took from her finger a ring exactly like that of Rachel's. He 
told me it was a souvenir from his mother, and that he would 
not have parted with it to any one but me." 

We looked at one another and smiled. The prince had 
evidently a jeweller who manufactured " souvenirs from his 
mother" by the dozen, and which he, the prince, distributed 
at that time, " in remembrance of certain happy hours." The 
multiplicity of the rings on Rachel's wrist was no longer a 
puzzle to me. I was thinking of the story in the " Arabian 
l^ights," where the lady with the ninety-eight rings bewitches 
the Sultans Shariar and Shahzenan, in spite of the jealousy 
and watchfulness of the monster to whom she belongs, and 
so makes the hundred complete. 

Amons: the manv stories Rachel told me there is one not 



RACHEL AT THE PRUSSIAN COURT. 137 

generally known — that of her first appearance before Nicho- 
las I. Though she was very enthusiastically received in Lon- 
don, and though she always spoke gratefully of the many acts 
of kindness shown her there, I am inclined to think that she 
felt hurt at the want of cordiality on the part of the English 
aristocracy Avhen they invited her to recite at their entertain- 
ments. This may be a mere surmise of mine ; I have no bet- 
ter grounds for it than an expression of hers one day when 
we were discussing London society. " Oui, les Anglais, ils 
sont tres aimables, mais ils paraissent avoir peur des artistes, 
comme des betes sauvages, car ils vous parquent comme elles 
au Jardin des Plantes." I found out afterwards that it was 
a kind of grudge she bore the English for having invariably 
improvised a platform or enclosure by means of silken ropes. 
Certain is it that, beyond a few casual remarks at long inter- 
vals upon London, she seemed reluctant to discuss the sub- 
ject with me. Not so with regard to Potsdam after her return 
whence in August, '51. In the beginning of July of that 
year she told me that she had a special engagement to appear 
before the court on the 13th of that month. I did not see 
her until a few weeks after she came back, and then she gave 
me a full account of the affair. I repeat, after the lapse of 
so many years, I cannot reproduce her own words, and I 
could not, even half an hour after her narrative, have repro- 
duced the manner of her telling it ; but I can vouch for the 
correctness of the facts. 

"About six o'clock, Raphael [her brother], who was to 
give me my cues, and I arrived at Potsdam, w^here we were 
met by Schneider, who had made the engagement with me. 
You know, perhaps, that Schneider had been an actor him- 
self, that afterwards he had been promoted to the director- 
ship of the Royal Opera House, and that now he is the private 
reader to the king, with the title of privy or aulic councillor. 

" Schneider is a very nice man, and I have never heard a 
German speak our language so perfectly. Perhaps it was as 
well, because I dread to contemplate what would have been 
the effect upon my nerves and ears of lamentations in Teu- 
tonized French." 

" Why lamentations?" I asked. 

" Ah, nous voila ! " she replied. " You remember I was 
in mourning. The moment I stepped out of the carriage, 
he exclaimed, ' But you are all in black, mademoiselle.' ' Of 
course I am,' I said, ' seeing that I am in mourning.' ' Great 



138 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Heaven ! what am I to do ? Black is not admitted at court 
on such occasions.' I believe it was the birthday of the 
Czarina, but of course I was not bound to know that. 

" There was no time to return to Berlin, and least of all 
to get a dress from there, so Raphael and he put their heads 
together ; the result of which conference was my being bun- 
dled rather than handed into a carriage, which drove off at 
full speed to the Chateau de Glinicke. I could scarcely catch 
a glimj)se of the country around Potsdam, which seemed to 
me very lovely. 

" When we got to Glinicke, which belongs to Prince 
Charles, I was handed over to some of the ladies-in-waiting of 
the princess. Handed over is the only word, because I felt 
more like a prisoner than anything else, and they tried to 
make ' little Rachel ' presentable according to their lights. 
One of them, after eyeing me critically, suggested my Avear- 
ing a dress of hers. In length it would have done very well, 
only I happen to be one of the lean kine, and she decidedly 
was not, so that idea had to be abandoned. They may be 
very worthy women, these German ladies, but their inventive- 
ness with regard to dress is absolutely ml. When the idea 
suggested by the first lady turned out to be impracticable, 
they were a bout de ressources. You may gather from this, 
mon ami, that the beginning and the end of their strategic de 
la toilette are not far apart. There was one thiug that con- 
soled me for this sudden exhaustion of their limited inge- 
nuity. Between the half-dozen — for they were half a dozen — 
they could not find a single word when the first and only 
device proved impossible of realization. Had there been the 
same number of French women assembled, it would have 
been a kind of little madhouse; in this instance there was a 
deep silence for at least ten minutes, eventually broken by 
the knocking at the door of one of the maids, with Herr 
Schneider's compliments, and wishing to know what had 
been decided upon. The doleful answer brought him to the 
room, and what six women could not accomplish, he, like the 
true artist, accomplished at once. ' Get Mdlle. Rachel a black 
lace mantilla, put a rose in her hair, and give her a pair of 
white gloves.' In less than ten minutes I was ready, and in 
another ten, Raphael, Schneider, and I embarked on a pretty 
little steam-yacht lying ready at the end of the magnificent 
garden for Tile des Paons ' (Pfauen-Insul, Peacock Island), 
where we landed exactly at eight. But my troubles and sur- 



A CURIOUS DRAMATIC RECITAL. J 39 

prises were not at an end. I made sure that there would be 
at least a tent, an awning, or a platform for me to stand un- 
der or upon. Ah, oui ! not the smallest sign of either. 
' Voila votre estrade,' said Schneider, pointing to a small 
lawn, separated from the rest of the gardens by a gravelled 
walk three or four feet wide. T declined at once to act un- 
der such conditions, and insisted upon being taken back im- 
mediately to the station, and from thence to Berlin. Poor 
Schneider was simply in despair. In vain did he point out 
that to any one else the total absence of scenery and adjuncts 
might prove a drav\^back, but that to me it would only be an 
additional advantage, as it would bring into greater relief my 
own talent ; I would not be persuaded. Finding that it was 
fruitless to play upon my vanity as an artist, he appealed to 
me as a femme du monde. ' The very absence of all prepa- 
rations,' he said, ' proves that their majesties have not en- 
gaged Mdlle. Rachel of the Comedie-Franc^aise to give a reci- 
tation, but invited Mdlle. Rachel Felix to one of their soirees. 
That Mdlle. Rachel Felix should be kind enough, after hav- 
ing partaken of a cup of tea, to recite something, would only 
be another proof of her well-known readiness to oblige ; ' and 
so forth. Let me tell you, mon cher, that I have rarely met 
with a cleverer diplomatist, and Heaven knows I have seen a 
lot who imagined themselves clever. They could not hold a 
candle to this erstwhile actor ; nevertheless I remained as 
firm as a rock, though I was sincerely distressed on Schnei- 
der's account." 

" What made you give in at last? " I inquired. " Was it 
the idea of losing the magnificent fee ? " 

" For once you are mistaken," she laughed, " though 
Schneider himself brought that argument to bear as a big 
piece of artillery. ' Remember this, mademoiselle,' he said, 
when he could think of nothing else ; ' remember this — that 
this soiree may be the means of putting three hundred 
thousand or four hundred thousand francs into your pocket. 
You yourself told me Just now on board the yacht that you 
were very anxious for an engagement at St. Petersburg. I 
need scarcely tell you that, if you refuse to appear before 
their majesties to-night, I shall be compelled to state the 
reason, and Russia will be for ever closed to you. Apart from 
pecuniary considerations, it will be said by your enemies — 
and your very eminence in your profession causes you to have 
many — that you have failed to please the Empress. After 



14:0 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

all, the fact tliat all the ordinary surroundings of the actress 
have been neglected proves that you are not looked upon as 
an actress by them, but as une femme du monde.' " 

" That persuaded you? " I remarked. 

" Not at all." 

" Then it was the money." 

" Of course you would think so, even if I swore the con- 
trary a hundred times over ; but if you were to guess from 
now till to-morrow, you would never hit upon the real reason 
that made me stay." 

" Well, then, I had better not try, and you had better tell 
me at once." 

" Strange as it may seem to you, it was neither the grati- 
fication of being treated en femme du monde nor the money 
that made me stay ; it was the desire to see what I had been 
told was the handsomest man in Europe. I did see him, and 
for once in a way rumour had not exaggerated the reality. I 
had scarcely given my final consent to Schneider, when the 
yacht carrying the imperial and royal families came alongside 
the island, and the illustrious passengers landed, amidst an 
avalanche of flowers thrown from the other vessels. Schneider 
presented me to the King, who was also good-looking, and 
the latter presented me to the Czar. 

" Immediately afterwards the recital began. At the risk 
of taxing your credulity still further, I may tell you that I, 
Rachel, who never knew what ' stage-fright ' meant, felt nerv- 
ous. That man to me looked like a very god. Fortunately 
for my reputation, the shadows of night were gathering fast ; 
in another twenty minutes it would be quite dark, and I felt 
almost rejoiced that my audience could scarcely distinguish 
my features. On the other hand, Raphael, who only knew 
the part of Hippolyte by heart, and who was obliged to read 
the others, declared that he could not see a line, and candles 
had to be brought in. It was a glorious evening, but there 
was a breeze nevertheless, and as fast as the candles were 
lighted, they were extinguished by the wind. To put ordi- 
nary lauips on the lawn at our feet was not to be thought of 
for a moment; luckily one of the functionaries remembered 
that there were some candelabra with, globes inside, and by 
means of these a kind of ' float ' was improvised. Still the 
scene was a curious one. Raphael close to me on the edge of 
the lawn, with one of these candelabra in his left hand. Be- 
hind, to the left and right of us, a serried crowd of generals, 



RACHEL AND SAMSON. 141 

court dignitaries in magnificent uniforms. In front, and 
separated by the whole width of a gravel walk, the whole 
group of sovereigns and their relations, and behind them the 
walls of the mansion, against which the tea-table had been 
set, and around which stood the ladies-in-waiting of the 
Queen of Prussia and the Empress of Eussia. A deep silence 
around, only broken by the soft soughing of the wind in the 
trees, and the splashing of a couple of fountains near, playing 
a dirge-like accompaniment to Kaphael's and my voice. 

" The recital lasted for nearly an hour ; if I had liked I 
could have kept them there the whole night, for never in my 
career have I had such an attentive, such a religiously atten- 
tive, audience. The King was the first to notice my fatigue, 
and he gave the signal for my leaving off by coming up and 
thanking me for my efforts. The Emperor followed his ex- 
ample, and stood chatting to me for a long while. In a few 
minutes I was the centre of a circle which I am not likely 
to forget as long as I live. Then came the question how 
Raphael and I were to get back to Berlin. The last train 
was gone. But Schneider simply suggested a special, and a 
mounted messenger was despatched then and there to order 
it. After everything had been arranged for my comfortable 
return, the sovereigns departed as they had come, only this 
time the yacht, as well as the others on the lake, were splen- 
didly illuminated. This was my first appearance before 
Nicholas L" 

There was no man to w^iom Rachel owed more than to 
Samson, or even as much ; but for him, and in spite of her 
incontestable genius, the Comedie-Eran9ais might have re- 
mained closed to her for many years, if not forever. Fre- 
derick Lemaitre and Marie Dorval were undoubtedly, in their 
own way, as great as she, yet the blue riband of their profes- 
sion never fell to their lot. And yet, when she had reached 
the topmost rung of the ladder of fame, Rachel was very 
often not only ungrateful to him, but her ingratitude showed 
itself in mean, spiteful tricks. When Legouve's " Adrienne 
Lecouvreur" was being cast, Samson, who had forgiven 
Rachel over and OA'er again, was on such cool terms with her 
that the authors feared he would not accept the part of the 
Prince de Bouillon. Nevertheless, Samson, than whom there 
w^as not a more honourable and conscientious man, on or off 
the stage, accepted ; he would not let his resentment inter- 
fere with what he considered his duty to the institution of 



142 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

which he was so eminent a member. This alone ought to 
have been sufficient to heal the breach between the tutor and 
iho pupil ; any woman with the least spark of generosity, in 
the position of Rachel towards Samson, would have taken the 
first step towards a reconciliation. Rachel, as will be seen 
directly, was perfectly conscious of what she ought to do 
under the circumstances ; she was too great an actress not to 
have studied the finer feelings of the human heart, and yet 
she did not do it. On the contrary, she aggravated matters. 
Every one knows the fable of "The Two Pigeons " which 
Adrienne recites at the soiree of the Princesse de Bouillon. 
Now, it so happened that the great barrister and orator, Ber- 
ryer, was considered a most charming reciter of that kind of 
verse. Berryer, a most simple-minded man, took special de- 
light in sharing the most innocent games of young children. 
He was especially fond of the game of " forfeits " ; and so 
great Avas his fame as a diseur, that the peiialty generally im- 
posed upon him was the reciting of a fable. But great diseur 
as he was, he himself acknowledged that Samson could have 
given him a lesson. 

At every new part she undertook, Rachel was in the habit 
of consulting with her former tutor ; this time she -went to 
consult Berryer instead, and, what was worse, took pains that 
every one should hear of it. " Then my heart smote me," 
she said afterwards, when by one of those irresistible tricks 
of hers she had obtained her tutor's pardon once more. It 
was as deliberate a falsehood as she ever uttered in her life, 
which in Rachel's case means a good deal. The fact was, 
the affair, as I have already said, had been bruited about, 
mainly by herself at first ; the public showed a disposition to 
take Samson's part, and she felt afraid of a " warm rece})tion " 
on the first night. 

Under these circumstances she had recourse to one of her 
wiles, which, for being theatrical, was not less efi'eetive. At 
the first rehearsal, when Adrienne has to turn to Michonnet, 
saying, " This is my true friend, to Avhom I owe everything," 
she turned, not to Regnier, Avho played Michonnet, and to 
Avhom the words are addressed, but to Samson, at the same 
time holding out her hand to him. Samson, who, notAvith- 
standing all their disagreements, very felt proud of his great 
pupil, Avho Avas, moreover, of a very affectionate disposition, 
notwithstanding his habitual reserve, fell into the trap. 
He took her proffered hand ; then she flung herself into his 



A DIRECTOR OF THE COMEDIE. 143 

arms, and the estrangement was at an end, for the time 
being. Rachel took great care to make the reconciliation as 
pubUc as possible. 

I was never very intimiite with Samson, but the little I 
knew of him I liked. I repeat, he was essentially an honour- 
able and honest man, and very tolerant with regard to the 
foibles of the fair sex. There was need for such tolerance in 
those days. Augustine? Brohan, Sylvanie Plessy, Rachel, and 
half a dozen other women, all very talented, but all very way- 
ward, made Buloz' life (he was the director of the Comedie- 
Fran^aise, as well as the editor of the Revue des Deux 
Mondes) a burden to him. He who could, and often did, dic- 
tate his will to men who already then were famous throughout 
Europe, frequently found himself powerless against women, 
who, however celebrated, were, with the exception of Rachel, 
nothing in comparison with the former. He was, it is true, 
overbearing to a degree, and disagreeable ^ besides, but his 
temper proved of no avail with them ; it only made matters 
worse. "Apres tout," he said one day to Madame Allan, 
who was the most amenable of all, " je suis le maitre ici." 
" (^a se pent, monsieur," was the answer, " mais nous sommes 
les contres maitre." * 

In nearly all such troubles Regnier and Samson had to 
act as buffers between the two contending parties ; but, 
as Augustine Brohan explained once, the two were utterly 
different in their mode of casting oil upon the troubled waters. 
" Regnier," she said, " c'est le bon Dieu des Chretiens, qui se 
fait tres souvent mener par le nez par des mots. Du reste son 
nez s'yprete. f Samson c'est le Dieu Jaste, mais vengeur des 
Juifs, qui veut bien pardonner, mais seulement apres soumis- 
sion complete et entiere. Samson ne vous promet pas le ciel, 
il vous offre des compensations solides ici bas." 

It would be difficult to paint the contrast between two 
characters in fewer words. In 1845, when Mdlle. Sylvanie 
Plessy seceded from the Comedie-Fran9aise, Regnier wrote a 
kind epistle, recommending her to come and explain matters 
either personally or by letter. " Let your letter be kind and 

* Tlie play upon the word is scarcely translatable. " Contre-maitre " in the 
sintrular incaus foreman ; as it is used liero it moans against the master. — 
Editor. 

t Kdtrnier's nose was always a subject of jokes among his fellow-actors. " It 
is not because it is large," said Bcauvallet, " but because, it is his principal or- 
gan of speech." — Editor. 



144: AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

affectionate, and be sure that things will right themselves 
better than you expect." 

Samson also wrote, but simply to say that if she did not 
come back at once all the terrors of the law would be invoked 
against her. Which was done. The Comedie-Fran9aise insti- 
tuted proceedings, claiming two hundred thousand francs dam- 
ages, and twenty thousand francs " a titre de provision." * The 
court cast Mdlle. Plessy in six thousand ivun^i^ provision^ defer- 
ring judgment on the principal claim. Two years later Mdlle. 
Plessy returned and re-entered the fold. Thanks to Sam- 
son, she did not pay a single farthing of damages, and the 
Comedie bore the costs of the wdiole of the lawsuit. f 

Both Samson and Kegnier were very proud of their profes- 
sion, but their pride showed itself in different ways. Regnier 
would have willingly made any one an actor — that Is, a 
good actor ; he was always teaching a great many amateurs, 
staging and superintending their performances. Samson, on 
the other hand, had no sympathy whatsoever with that kind 
of thing, and could rarely be induced to give it aid, but he 
was very anxious that every public speaker should study elo- 
cution. " Eloquence and elocution are two different things," 
he said ; " and the eloquent man who does not study elocu- 
tion, is like an Apollo with a bad tailor, and who dresses 
without a looking-glass. I go further still, and say that 
every one ought to learn how to speak, not necessarily with 
the view of amusing his friends and acquaintances, but with 
the view of not annoying them. I am a busy man, but 
should be glad to devote three hours a week to teach the rising 
generation, and especially the humbler ones, how to speak." 

In connection with that wish of Samson, that every man 
whose duties compelled him, or who voluntarily undertook to 
speak in public, should be a trained elocutionist, I remember 
a curious story of which I was made the recipient quite by 
accident. It was in the year 'GO, one morning in the sum- 
mer, that I happened to meet Samson in the Eue Vivienne. 
We exchanged a few words, shook hands, and each went his 
own way. In the afternoon I was sitting at Tortoni's, when a 
gentleman of about thirty-five came up to me. " Monsieur," 

* Damages claimed by one of the parties, pending the final verdict. — Ed- 

ITOK. 

t Cnriously enough, it was Emile Angler's " Aventuriere " that caused 
Mdlle. Plessy's secession, just as it did thirty-live years later, in the case of 
Mdlle. Sarah Bernhardt.— Editor. 



SAMSON. 145 

he said, " will you allow me to ask you a question ? " " Cer- 
tainly, monsieur, if it be one I can answer," I replied. " I 
believe," he said, " that I saw you in the Kue Yivienne this 
morning talking to some one whose name I do not know, 
but to whom I am under great obligations. I was in a great 
hurry and in a cab, and before I could stop the cabman both 
of you had disappeared. Will you mind telling me his 
name? " " I recollect being in the Rue Yivienne and meet- 
ing with M. Samson of the Comedie-rran9aise," I answered. 
" i thought so," remarked my interlocutor. " Allow me to 
thank you, monsieur." With this he lifted his hat and w^ent 
out. 

The incident had slipped my memory altogether, when I 
was reminded of it by Samson himself, about three weeks 
afterwards, in the green-room of the Comedie-Fran9aise. I 
had been there but a few moments when he came in. " You 
are the man who betrayed me," he said with a chuckle. " I 
have been cudgelling my brain for the last three weeks as to 
who it could have been, for I spoke to no less than half a 
dozen friends and acquaintances in the Eue Yivienne on the 
morning I met you, and they all wear imperials and mous- 
taches. A nice thing you have done for me ; you have bur- 
dened me with a grateful friend for the rest of my life ! " 

And then he told me the story, how two years before he 
had been at Granville during the end of the summer; how 
he had Btrolled into the Palais de Justice and heard the pro- 
cureur-imperial make a speech for the prosecution, the deliv- 
ery of which would have disgraced his most backward pupil 
at the Conservatoire. " I was very angry with the fellow, 
and felt inclined to write him a letter, telling him that there 
was no need to torture the innocent audience, as well as the 
prisoner in the dock. I should have signed it. I do not 
know why I did not, but judge of my surprise when, the same 
evening at dinner, I found myself seated opposite him. I 
must have scowled at him, and he repaid scowl for scowl. It 
appears that he was living at the hotel temporarily, while his 
wife and child were away. I need not tell you the high 
opinion our judges have of themselves, and I dare say he 
thought it the height of impertinence that I, a simple mor 
tal, should stare at him. I soon came to the conclusion, how- 
ever, that if I wanted to spare my fellow-creatures such an 
infliction as I had endured that day, I ought not to arouse 
the man's anger. So I looked more mild, then entered into 
11 



146 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

conversation with him. You should have seen his face when 
I began to criticize his tone and gestures. But he evidently 
felt that I was somewhat of an authority on the subject, and 
at last I took him out on the beacii and gave him a lesson in 
delivering a sj^eech, and left him there without revealing my 
name. Kext morning I went away, and never set eyes on 
him again until three weeks ago, when he left his card, ask- 
ing for an interview. He is a very intelligent man, and has 
profited by the first lesson. During the three days he re- 
mained in Paris I gave him three more. He says that if ever 
I get into a scrape, he'll do better than defend me — prosecute 
me, and I'm sure to get off." 

I have never seen Samson give a lesson at the Conserva- 
toire, but I was present at several of Regnier's, tlianks to Auber, 
whom I knew very well, and who was the director, and to 
Regnier himself, who did not mind a stranger being present, 
provided he felt certain that the stranger was not a scoffer. I 
believe that Samson would have objected without reference to 
the stranger's disposition ; at any rate, Auber hinted as much, 
so I did not prefer my request in a direct form. 

I doubt, moreover, whether a lesson of Samson to his 
pupils would have been as interesting to the outsider as one 
of Regnier's. Of all the gifts that go to the making of a 
great actor, Regnier had naturally only two — taste and in- 
telligence ; the others were replaced by what, for want of a 
better term, one might call the tricks of the actor ; their ac- 
quisition demanded constant study. For instance, Regnier's 
appearance off the stage was absolutely insignificant; his 
voice was naturally husky and indistinct, and, moreover, 
what the French call nasillarde, that is, produced through the 
nose. His features were far from mobile ; the eyes were not 
without expression, but these never twinkled with merriment 
nor shone with passion. Consequently, the smallest as well 
as largest effect necessary to the interpretation of a character 
had to be thought out carefully beforehand, and then to be 
tried over and over again materially. Each of his inflections 
had to be timed to a second ; but when all this was accom- 
plished, the picture presented by him was so perfect as to 
deceive the most experienced critic, let alone an audience, 
however intelligent. In fact, but for his own frank admis- 
sion of all this, his contemporaries and posterity would have 
been never the wiser, for, to their honour be it said, his fellow- 
actors were so interested in watching him " manipulate him- 



REGNIER AND HIS ART. I47 

self," as they termed it, as to never breathe a word of it to 
the outside world. They all acknowledged that they had 
learned something from him during rehearsal. For instance, 
in one of his best-known characters, that of the old servant 
in Madame de Girardin's " La Joie fait peur," * there is 
a scene which, as played by Eegnier and Delaunay, looked 
to the spectator absolutely spontaneous. The smallest detail 
had been minutely regulated. It is where the old retainer, 
while dusting the room, is talking to himself about his young 
master. Lieutenant Adrien Desaubiers, who is reported" dead. 

" I can see him now," says Noel, who cannot resign him- 
self to the idea ; " I can see him now, as he used to come in 
from his long walks, tired, starving, and shouting before he 
was fairly into the house. ' Here I am, my good Xoel ; I am 
dying with hunger. Quick ! an omelette.' " At that mo- 
ment the young lieutenant enters the room, and having 
heard IS^oel's last sentence, repeats it word for word. 

Short as was the sentence, it had been arranged that De- 
launay should virtually cut it into four parts. 

At the words, "/^f is /," Eegnier shivered from head to 
foot; at ^'Here I am^ my good Noel^^'' he lifted his eyes heav- 
enwards, to make sure that the voice did not come from 
there, and that he was not labouring under a kind of hallu- 
cination ; at the words, ^'I am dying loith liunger^'' he came 
to the conclusion that it Avas a real human voice after all ; 
and at the final, " QuicTcl an omelette^'' he turned round 
quickly, and fell like a log into the young fellow's arms. 

I repeat, the whole of the scene had been timed to the 
fraction of a second ; nevertheless, on the first night, Eegnier, 
nervous as all great actors are on such occasions, forgot all 
about his own arrangements, and, at the first sound of De- 
launay's voice, was so overcome with emotion that he literally 
tumbled against the latter, who of course was not prepared 
to bear him up, and had all his work to do to keej^ himself 
from falling also. Meanwhile Eegnier lay stretched at full 
length on the stage, and the house broke into tumultuous 
applause. 

" That was magnificent," said Delaunay after the perform- 
ance. " Suppose we repeat the thing to-morrow ? " 

* There are several English versions of the play, and I am under the im- 
pression that the lare Tom Eobertson was inspired by it when he adapted 
" Caste." I allude to that scene in the third act, where George d'Alroy returns 
unexpectedly and where Polly Eceles breaks the news to her sister. — Editor. 



148 ^^ ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

But Regnier would not hear of it ; he stuck to his original 
conception in four tempi. He preferred trusting to his art 
rather than to the frank promptings of nature. 

That is why a lesson of Regnier to his pupils was so in- 
teresting to the outsider. The latter was, as it were, initiated 
into all the resources the great actor has at his command 
wherewith to produce his illusion upon the public. Among 
Regnier's pupils those were his favourites who never allowed 
themselves to be carried away by their feelings, and who 
trusted to these resources as indicated to them by their tutor. 
He was to a certain extent doubtful of the others. " Feel- 
ings vary; effects intelligently conceived, studied, and carried 
out ought never to vary," he said. Consequently it became 
one of his theories that those most plentifully endowed with 
natural gifts were not likely to become more j^erfect than 
those who had been treated niggardly in that respect, pro- 
vided the vocation and the perseverance were there. The re- 
verse of Samson, who was proudest of Rachel, Regnier was 
never half as proud of M. Coquelin as of others who had given 
him far more trouble. Augustine Brohan explained the feel- 
ing in her own inimitable way : " Regnier est comme le grand 
seigneur qui s'enamourache d'une paysanne a qui il faut tout 
enseigner; si moi j'etais homme, j'aimerais mieux une de- 
moiselle de bonne famille, qui n'aurait pas besoin de tant 
d'enseignement," 

Mdlle. Brohan exaggerated a little bit. Regnier's pupils 
were not peasant children, to whom he had to teach every- 
thing ; a great many, like Coquelin, required very little 
teaching, and all the others had the receptive qualities which 
make teaching a pleasure. The latter, boys and girls, had to 
a certain extent become like Regnier himself, " bundles of 
tricks," and, what is perhaps not so surprising to students of 
psychology and physiology, their features had contracted a 
certain likeness to his. At the first blush one might have 
mistaken them for his children. And they might have been, 
for the patience he had with them. It was rarely exhausted, 
but he now and then seemed to be waiting for a new supply. 
At such times there was a frantic clutch at the shock, grey- 
haired head, or else a violent blowing of the perky nose in a 
large crimson chequered handkerchief, its owner standing all 
the while on one leg ; the attitude was irresistibly comic, but 
the pupils were used to it, and not a muscle of their faces 
moved. 



HIS PRIDE IX HIS PROFESSIOX. 149 

Those who imagine that Reguier's courses were merely so 
many lessons of elocution and gesticulation would be alto- 
gether mistaken. Regnier, unlike many of his great fellow- 
actors of that period, had received a good education : he had 
been articled to an architect, he had even dabbled in painting, 
and there were few historical personages into whose characters 
he had not a thorough insight. He was a fair authority upon 
costume and manners of the Middle Ages, and his acquaint- 
ance with Roman and Greek antiquities would have done 
credit to many a professor. He was called " le comedien 
savant " and " le savant comedien." As such, whenever a 
pupil failed to grasp the social or political importance of one 
of the dramatis joersome of Racine's or Corneille's play, there 
was sure to be a disquisition, telling the youngster all about 
him, but in a way such as to secure the attention of the 
listener — a way that might have aroused the envy of a uni- 
versity lecturer. The dry bones of history were clothed by a 
man with an eye for the picturesque. 

" Who do you think Augustus was ? " he said one day 
when I was present, to the pupil, who was declaiming some 
lines of " Cinna." " Do you think he was the concierge or 
le commissionnaire du coin ? " And forthwith there was a 
sketch of Augustus. Absolutely quivering with life, he led 
his listener through the streets of Rome, entered the palace 
with him, and once there, became Augustus himself. After 
such a scene he would frequently descend the few steps of the 
]3latform and drop into his armchair, exhausted. 

Every now and then, in connection with some character 
of Moliere or Regnard,^iere would be an anecdote of the 
great interpreter of the character, but an anecdote enacted, 
after which the eyes would fill with tears, and the ample 
chequered handkerchief come into requisition once more. 

Regnier was a great favourite with most of his fellow- 
actors and the employes of the Comedie-Fran^aise, but he 
was positively worshipped by Giovanni, the wigmaker of the 
establishment. They were in frequent consultation even in 
the green-room, the privilege of admission to which had been 
granted to the Italian Figaro. The consultations became 
most frequent when one of the members undertook a part 
new to him. It was often related of Balzac that he firmly 
believed in the existence of the characters his brain had 
created. The same might be said of Regnier with regard to 
the characters created by the great playwrights of his own 



150 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

time and tliose of the past. Of course, I am not speaking of 
those who had an historical foundation. But Alceste, Harpa- 
gon, Georges Dandin, Sganarelle, and Scapin were as real to 
him as Orestes and Oedipus, as Augustus and Mohammed. 
He would give not only their biographies, but describe their 
appearance, their manners, their gait, and even their com- 
plexion. The first time I heard him do so, I made sure that 
he was trying to mystify Giovanni ; but Rachel, who w^as 
present, soon undeceived me. x\nd the Italian would sit 
listening reverently, then start up, and exclaim, " Ze sais ce 
qu'il vous faut, Monsu Regnier, ze vais faire oune parruque a 
etonner Moliere lui-meme." And he kept his word, because 
he considered that the wig contributed as much to, or de- 
tracted from, the success of an actor as his diction, and more 
than his clothes. When Delaunay became a societaire his 
first part was that of the lover in M. Viennet's "Migraine." 
*' Voila Monsu Delaunay, oune veritable parruque di societaire. 
Zouez a present, vous etes sour de votre affaire." 

One day Beauvallet found him standing before the win- 
dow of Brandus, the music-publisher in the Rue de Richelieu. 
He was contemplating the portrait of Rossini, and he looked 
sad. 

" What are you standing there for, Giovanni ? " asked 
Beauvallet. 

" Ah, Monsu Bouvallet, I am looking at the i^ortrait of 
Maestro Giovanni Rossini, and when I think that his name 
is Giovanni like mine, when I see that abominable wig which 
looks like a grass-plot after a month of drought, I feel 
ashamed and sad. But I will go a^d see him, and make him 
a wig for love or money that will take twenty years off his 
age." He went, but Rossini would not hear of it, or rather 
Madame Rossini put a spoke in his wheel. Giovanni never 
mentioned his name again. It was Ligier who brought Gio- 
vanni to Paris, and for a quarter of a century he worked un- 
remittingly for the glory of the Comedie-Fran^aise, and 
Avhen one of the great critics happened to speak favourably 
of the " make-up " of an actor, as Paul de St. Victor did 
when Regnier " created Noel," Giovanni used to leave his 
card at his house. It was Giovanni who made the wigs for 
M. Ancessy, the musical director at the Odeon, wdio, under 
the management of M. Edouard Thierry, occupied the same 
position at the Comedie-Fran9aise. M. Ancessy was not only 
a good chef d'orchestre, but a composer of talent ; but he had 



GIOVANNI AND REGNIER. 151 

one great weakness — he was as bald as a billiard-ball and 
wished to pass for an Absalom. Giovanni helped him to 
carry out the deception by making three artistic wigs. The 
first was of yery short hair, and was worn from the 1st to the 
10th of the month; from the 11th to the 20th M. Ancessy 
donned one with hair that was so visibly growing as to cover 
his ears. From the 20th to the last day of the month his 
locks were positively flowing, and he never failed to say on 
that last evening in the hearing of every one, " What a terri- 
ble nuisance my hair is to me ! I must have it cut to-mor- 
row." 



152 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 



CHAPTER YII. 

Two composers, Auber and Felicien David — Auber, the legend of his youthful 
appearance — How it arose — His daily rides, his love of women's society — 
His mot on Mozart's " Don -luan" — The only drawback to Auber's enjoy- 
ment of women's society — His reluctance to take his hat off — How he man- 
aged to keep it on most of the time — His opinion upon Meyerbeer's and 
Halevy's g^enius — His opinion upon Gerard de IServal, who hanged himself 
with liis hat on — His love of solitude — His fondness of Paris— His griev- 
ance against his mother for not having given him birth there — He refuses 
to leave Paris at the commencement of the siege — His small appetite — He 
proposes to write a new opera when the Prussians are gone — Auber suffers 
no privations, but has difftculty in finding fodder for his horse — The Pari- 
sians claim it for food — Another legend about Auber's independence of 
sleep — How and where he generally slept — Why Auber snored in Veron's 
company, and why he did not in that of other people — His capacity for 
■work — Auber a brilliant talker — Auber's gratitude to the artists who inter- 
preted his work, but different from Meyerlbeer's — The reason why, accord- 
ing to Auber — Jealousy or humility — Auber and the younger Coquelin — 
" The verdict on all things in this world may be summed up in the one 
phrase, ' It's an injustice'" — Felicien David— The man— The beginnings 
of his career — His terrible poverty ^ — He joins the Saint-Simoniens, and goes 
with some of them to the East— Their reception at Constantinople — M. 
Scribe and the libretto of "L'Africaine" — David in Egypt at the court of 
Mehemet-Ali — David's description of him — Mehemet's way of testing the 
educational progress of liis sons — Woe to the fat kine — Mehemet-Ali sug- 
gests a new mode of teaching music to the inmates of the harem — Felicien 
David's further wanderings in Egypt — Their effect upon his musical genius 
— PHs return to France — He tells the story of the first performance of "Le 
Desert" — An ambulant box-office — His success — Fame, but no money — He 
sells the score of " Le Desert " — He loses lits savings — "LaPerledu Bre- 
sil" and the Coup-d'Etat — "No luck" — Napoleon III. remains his debtor 
for eleven years — A mot of Auber, and one of Alexandre Dumas pere — 
The story of "xiida" — Why Felicien David did not compose the music — 
The real author of the libretto. 

I KNEW Auber from the year '42 or '43 until the day of 
his death. He and I were in Paris during the siege and the 
Commune ; we saw one another frequently, and I am positive 
that the terrible misfortunes of his country shortened his life 
by at least ten 3^ears. For though at the beginning of the 
campaign he was close upon ninety, he scarcely looked a 
twelvemonth older than when I first knew him, nearly three 
decades before ; that is, a very healthy and active old man, 
but still an old man. So much nonsense has been written 



AUBER. 153 

about his perpetual youth, that it is well to correct the error. 
But the ordinary French public, and many journalists be- 
sides, could not understand an octogenarian being on horse- 
back almost every day of his life, any more than they under- 
stood later on M. de Lesseps doing the same. They did not 
and do not know M. Mackenzie-Grieves, and half a dozen 
English residents in Paris of a similar age, who scarcely ever 
miss their daily ride. If they had known them, they might 
perhaps have been less loud in their admiration of the fact. 

What added, probably, to Auber's reputation of possess- 
ing the secret of perpetual youth was his great fondness for 
women's society, his very handsome appearance, though he 
was small comparatively, and his faultless way of dressing. 
He was most charming with the fairer sex, and many of the 
female pupils of the Conservatoire positively doted on him. 
Though polite to a degree with men — and I doubt whether 
Auber could have been other than polite with no matter 
whom — his smiles, I mean his benevolent ones, for he could 
smile very sceptically, were exclusively reserved for women. 
AVhen he heard Mozart's " Don Juan " for the first time, he 
said, " This is the music of a lover of twenty, and if a man 
be not an imbecile, he may always have in a little corner of 
his heart the sentiment or fancy that he is only twenty." 

There was but one drawback to Auber's enjoyment of the 
society of women — he was obliged to take off his hat in their 
presence, and he hated being without that article of dress. 
He might have worn a skull-cap at home, though there was 
no necessity for it, as far as his hair was concerned, for up to 
the last he was far from bald ; but he wanted his hat. He 
composed with his hat on, he had his meals with his hat on, 
and though he would have frequently preferred to take his 
seat in the stalls or balcony of a theatre, he invariably had a 
box, and generally one on the stage, in order to keep his hat 
on. He would often stand foi* hours on the balcony of his 
house in the Rue Saint- Georges with his hat on. " I never 
feel as much at home anywhere, not even in my own apart- 
ment, as in the synagogue," he said one day. He frequently 
went there for no earthly reason than because he could sit 
among a lot of people with his hat on. In fact, those fre- 
quent visits, coupled with his dislike to be bareheaded, made 
people wonder now and then whether Auber was a Jew. The 
supposition always made Auber smile. " That would have 
meant the genius of a Meyerbeer, a Mendelssohn, or a Hale- 



154: AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

vy," he said. " No, I have been lucky enough in my life, 
but such good fortune as that never fell to my lot." For 
there was no man so willing — nay, anxious — to acknowledge 
the merit of others as Auber. But Auber w^as not a Jew, and 
his mania for keeping on his hat had nothing to do with his 
religion. It was simply a mania, and nothing more. When, 
in January, '55, Gerard de Xerval was found suspended from 
a lamp-post in the Rue de la Vieille-Lanterne, he had his hat 
on his head ; his friends, and even the police, pretended to 
argue from this that he had not committed suicide, but had 
been murdered. " A man who is going to hang himself does 
not keep his hat on," they said. " Pourquoi pas, mon Dieu ? " 
asked Auber, simply. " If I were going to kill myself, I 
should certainly keep my hat on." In short, it was the only 
thing about Auber which could not be explained. 

Auber was exceedingly fond of society, and yet he was 
fond of solitude also. Many a time his friends reported that, 
returning home late from a party, they found Auber standing 
opposite his house in the Rue Saint-Georges, with apparently 
no other object than to contemplate it from below. After 
his return to Paris from London, whither he had been sent 
by his father, in order to become conversant with English 
business habits, he never left the capital again, though at the 
end of his life he regretted not having been to Italy. It was 
because Rossini, who was one of his idols, had said " that a 
musician should loiter away some of his time under that 
sky." But almost immediately he comforted himself with 
the thought that Paris, after all, was the only city worth liv- 
ing in. " I was very fond of my mother, but I have one 
grievance against her memory. What did she want to go to 
Caen for just at the moment when I w^as about to be born? 
But for tiiat I should have been a real Parisian." I do not 
think it made much difference, for I never knew such an in- 
veterate Parisian as Auber. When the investment of Paris 
had become an absolute certainty, some of his friends pressed 
him to leave ; he would not hear of it. They predicted dis- 
comfort, famine, and what-not. " The latter contingency 
will not ait'ect me much, seeing that I eat but once a day, 
and very little then. As for the sound of the firing disturb- 
ing me, I do not think it will. It has often been said that 
the first part of my overture to ' Fra Diavolo ' was inspired 
by the retreating tramp of the regiment ; there may be some 
truth in it. If it be vouchsafed to me to hear the retreating 



AUBER'S INDEPENDENCE OF SLEEP. 155 

tramp of the Germans, I will write an overture and an opera, 
which will be something different, I promise you." 

I do not su23pose that, personally, Auber suffered any pri- 
vations during the siege. A man in his position, who re- 
quired but one meal a day, and that a very light one, was 
sure to find it somewdiere ; but he had great trouble to find 
sufficient fodder for his old faithful hack, that had carried 
him for years, and when, after several months of scheming 
and contriving to that effect, he was forced to give it up as 
food for others, his cup of bitterness was full. " lis m'ont 
pris mon vieux cheval pour le manger," he repeated, when I 
saw him after the event ; " je I'avais depuis vingt ans." It 
was really a great blow to him. 

There is another legend about Auber which is not founded 
upon facts, namely, that he was pretty well independent of 
sleep. It was perfectly true that he went to bed very late 
and rose very early, but most people have overlooked the 
fact that during the evening he had had a comfortable doze, 
of at least an hour and a half or two hours, at the theatre. 
He rarely missed a performance at the Opera or Opera-Co- 
mique, except when his own work was performed. And 
during that time he slumbered peacefully, " en homme du 
monde," said Nestor Eoqueplan, " without snoring." 

" I never knew what it meant to snore," said Auber, 
apologetically, " until I took to sleeping in Yeron's box ; and 
as it is, I do not snore now except under provocation. But 
there would be no possibility of sleeping by the side of 
Veron without snoring. You have to drown his, or else it 
would awaken you." 

Auber was a brilliant talker, but he scarcely ever liked to 
exert himself except on the subject of music. It was all in 
all to him, and the amount of work he did must have been 
something tremendous. There are few students of the his- 
tory of operatic music, no matter how excellent their memo- 
ries, who could give the complete list of Auber's works by 
heart. We tried it once in 1850, when that list was much 
shorter than it is now ; there was not a single one who gave 
it correctly. The only one who came within a measureable 
distance was Roger, the tenor. 

In spite of his world-wide reputation, even at that time, 
Auber was as modest about his work as Meyerbeer, but he 
had more confidence in himself than the latter. Auber was 
by no means ungrateful to the artists who contributed to his 



156 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

success ; " but I don't ' coddle ' tliem, and put them in cot- 
ton-wool, like Meyerbeer," he said. " It is perfectly logical 
that he should do so. The Nourrits, the Levasseurs, the 
Viardot-Garcias, and the Rogers, are not picked up at street- 
corners ; but bring me the tirst urchin you meet, who has a 
decent voice, and a fair amount of intelligence, and in six 
months he'll sing the most difficult part I ever wrote, with 
tlie exception of that of Masaniello. My operas are a kind 
of warming-pan for great singers. There is something in 
being a good warming-pan." 

At the first blush, this sounds something like jealousy in 
the guise of humility, but I am certain that there was no 
jealousy in Auber's character. Few men have been so uni- 
formly successful, but he also had his early struggles, " when 
perhaps I did better work than I have done since." The last 
sentence was invariably trolled out when a pupil of the Con- 
servatoire complained to him of having been unjustly dealt 
with. I remember Coquelin the younger competing for the 
" prize of Comedy " in '65 or '66. He did not get it, and 
when we came out of Auber's box at the Conservatoire, the 
young fellow came up to him with tears in his eyes. I fancy 
they were tears of anger rather than of sorrow. 

" Ah, Monsieur Auber," he exclaimed, " that's an injus- 
tice ! " 

" Perhaps so, my dear lad," replied Auber ; " but remem- 
ber that the verdict on all things in this world may be 
summed up in the words you have just uttered, ' It's an injus- 
tice.' Let me give you a bit of advice. If you mean to become 
a good Figaro, you must be the first to laugh at an injustice 
instead of weeping over it." Wherewith he turned his back 
upon the now celebrated comedian. In the course of these 
notes I shall have occasion to speak of Auber again. 

Auber need not have generalized to young Coquelin ; he 
might have cited one instance of injustice in his own profes- 
sion, to which, fortunately, there was no parallel for at least 
thirty years. In the forties the critics refused to recognize 
the genius of Felicien David, just as they had refused to 
recognize the genius of Hector Berlioz. In the seventies 
they were morally guilty of the death of Georges Bizet, the 
composer of " Carmen." 

I knew little or nothing of Hector Berlioz, but I fre- 
quently met Felicien David at Auber's. It was a pity to be- 
hold the man even after his success — a success which, how- 



FELICIEN DAVID. 157 

ever, did not put money in his purse. His moral sufferings, 
his material privations, had left their traces but too plainly 
on the face as well as on the mind. David had positively 
starved in order to buy the few books and the paper neces- 
sary to his studies, and yet he had the courage to say, " If I 
had to begin over again, I would do the same." The respect- 
ability that drives a gig when incarnated in parents who re- 
fuse to believe in the power of soaring of their offspring 
because they, the parents, cannot see the wdngs, has assur- 
edly much to answer for. Flotow's father stops the supplies 
after seven years, because his son has not come up to time 
like a race-horse. Berlioz' father does not give him so long 
a shrift ; he allows him three months to conquer fame. Fe- 
licien David had no father to help or to thwart him in his 
ambition. He was an orphan at the age of five, and left to 
the care of a sister, who was too poor to help him ; but he 
had an uncle who was well-to-do, and who allowed him the 
magnificent sum of fifty francs per month — for a whole 
quarter — and tlien -withdrew it, notwithstanding the assur- 
ance of Cherubini that the young fellow had the making of 
a great composer in him. And the worst is that these young 
fellows suffer in silence, w^hile there are hundreds of benevo- 
lent rich men who would willingly open their purses to them. 
When they do reveal their distressed condition, it is gener- 
ally to some one as poor as themselves. These rich men buy 
the autographs of the deceased genius for small or large sums 
which would have provided the struggling ones with com- 
forts for days and days. I have before me such a letter which 
I bought for ten francs. I would willingly have given ten 
times the amount not to have bought it. It is written to a 
friend of his youth. "As for money," it says, " seeing that 
I am bound to speak of it, things are going from bad to worse. 
And it is very certain that in a little while I shall have to 
give it up altogether. I have been ill for three weeks wdth 
pains in the back, and fever and ague everywhere. I dare 
say that my illness was brought on by my worries, and by 
the bad food of the Paris restaurants, also by the constant 
dampness. Why am I not a little better off? I fancy that 
the slight comforts an artist may reasonably expect would 
do me a great deal of good. I am not speaking of the 
body, though it is a part of ourselves which considerably 
affects our intellect, but my imagination would be the better 
for it, for how can my brain, constantly occupied as it is with 



158 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

the worry of material wants, act unhampered ? Really, I do 
not hesitate to say that poverty and privation kill the imagi- 
nation." 

They did not kill the imagination in David's case, but 
they undermined his constitution. It was at that period that 
he fell in with the Saint-Simoniens, to the high priest of 
which, M. Enfantin, who eventually became the chairman of 
the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean Railway Company, he 
took me many years later. After their dispersion, the group 
to which he belonged went to the East, and it is to this ap- 
parently fortuitous circumstance that the world owes not 
only " Le Desert," " La Perle du Bresil," and " L'Eden," but 
probably also Meyerbeer's " Africaine." Meyerbeer virtually 
acknowledged that but for David's scores, so replete with the 
poetry of the Orient, he would have never thought of such a 
subject for one of his operas. M. Scribe, on the other hand, 
always maintained that the idea emanated from him, and 
that it dated from 1847, when the composer was given the 
choice between " La Prophete " and " L'Africaine," and 
chose the former. One might almost paraphrase the accusji- 
tion of the wolf against the lamb in La Fontaine's fable. 
" M. Scribe, if you did not owe your idea to Felicien David, 
you owed it to Montigny, the director of the Gymnase, who 
in the thirties produced a play with a curious name, and a 
more curious plot, at the Ambigu-Comique." * One thing 
is certain, that " L'Africaine " was discarded, if ever it was 
offered, and would never have been thought of again but for 
Meyerbeer's intense and frankly acknowledged admiration of 
Felicien David's genius. 

To return for a moment to Felicien David, whose melan- 
choly vanished as if by magic when he related his wanderings 



* I have taken some |)ains to unearth tliis \>\i\y. It -was eallcd " Ainazampo; 
or, The Discovery of Quinine." The scene was' laid in Peru in lOoG. Aina- 
zampo, the chief of a Peruvian tribe, is in love with Maida, who on her part is 
in love with Ferdinand, the son of the viceroy. Amazampo is heart-broken, 
and is stricken down with fever. In his despair and partial delirium he tries 
to poison himself, and drinks the water of a pool in Avhich several trunks of a 
tree called Hna, reported poisonous, have been lyins: ibr years. He feels the 
effect almost immediately, but not the etfect he' expected. He recovers, and 
takes advantage of his recovered health to forget his love passion, and to bo 
avenged upon the oppressors of his country, many of whom are dying with 
fever. Lima becomes a huge cemetery. Then the wife of the viceroy is stricken 
down. Maida wishes to save her, but'ig forestalled bv Amazampo, who compels 
Dona Theodora to drink the liquor, and so forth. "But Amazampo and Maida 
die. — Editor. 



DAVID AND THE SAINT-SIMONIENS. I59 

in the East. I do not mean the jDoetical side of them, which 
inspired him with his great compositions, but the kidicrous 
one. I do not remember the dress of the Saint- Simoniens, I 
was too young at the time to have noticed it, but am told it 
consisted of a bhie tunic and trousers to match, a scarlet jer- 
sey, which buttoned at the back, and could not be undone 
except with the aid of some one else. It was meant to sym- 
bolize mutual dependence upon one another. " As far as 
Marseilles everything went comparatively well," said David ; 
" we lived by giving concerts, and though the receipts were 
by no means magnificent, they kept the wolf from the door. 
Our troubles began at Constantinople. Whether they did not 
like our music, or ourselves, or our dresses, I have never been 
able to make out, but we were soon denounced to the authori- 
ties, and marched off to prison, though our incarceration did 
not last more than a couple of hours, thanks to our ambassa- 
dor. Admiral Roussin. Our liberation, however, was condi- 
tional ; we had to leave at once. AYe made our way to Smyr- 
na, where my music seemed to meet with a little more favour. 
I performed every night, but in the open air, and some one 
took the hat round, just as if we had been a company of 
ambulant musicians to the manner born. 'We were, however, 
not altogether unhappy, for we had enough to eat and to 
drink, which with me, at any rate, was a paramount consid- 
eration. Up till then sufficient food had not been a daily 
item in my programme of life. My companions, neverthe- 
less, became restless ; they said they had not come to eat and 
drink and play music, but to convert the most benighted 
part of Europe to their doctrines ; so we moved to Jaffa and 
Jerusalem, then to Alexandria, and finally to Cairo. By the 
time we got there, only three of us were left ; the rest had 
gone homeward. Koenig-Bey had just at that moment un- 
dertaken the tuition of Mehemet- All's children — there were 
between sixty and seventy at that time ; it was he who pre- 
sented me to their father, with a view of my becoming the 
professor of music to the inmates of the harem. " It is of no 
use to try to get you the appointment of professor of music 
to the young princes, because Mehemet, though intelligent 
enough, would certainly not hear of it. He Avould not think 
it necessary that a man-child should devote himself to so 
effeminate an accomplishment. I am translating his own 
thoughts on the subject, not mine. When I tell you that 
my monthly report about their intellectual progress is invari- 



160 AN ENGLISPIMAN IN PARIS. 

ably waved off with the words, " Tell me how much they 
have gained or lost in weight," you will understand that I am 
not speaking at random. The viceroy thinks that hard study 
should produce a corresponding decrease in weight, which is 
not always the case, for those more or less inclined to obesity 
make flesh in virtue of their sitting too much. Consequent- 
ly the fat kine have a very bad time of it, and among the lat- 
ter is one of the most intelligent boys, Mohammed-Said.' " 

" Those who would infer from this," said David one day, 
referring to the same subject, " that Mehemet-Ali was lack- 
ing in intelligence, would commit a grave error. I am con- 
vinced, from the little I saw of him, that he was a man of 
very great natural parts. His features, though not absolutely 
handsome, were very striking and exi^ressive. He was over 
sixty then, but looked as if he could bear any amount of fa- 
tigue. His constitution must originally have been an iron 
one. Instead of the Oriental repose which I expected, there 
was a kind of semi-European, semi-military stiffness about 
him, which, however, soon wore off in conversation. I say 
advisedly conversation, albeit that he did not understand a 
word of French, which was the only language I spoke, and 
that I could not catch a word of his. But in spite of Koenig- 
Bey's acting the interpreter, it was a conversation between us 
both. He seemed to catch the meaning of my words the mo- 
ment they left my lips, and every now and then smiled at my 
remarks. He as it were read the thoughts that provoked 
them, and I do not wonder at his having been amused, for I 
myself was never so amused in my life. Perhaps you will be, 
when I tell you that I was not to see the ladies I had to teach ; 
my instruction was to be given to the eunuchs, who, in their 
turn, had to transmit them to the viceroy's wives and daugh- 
ters. Of course, I tried to point out the impossibility of siich 
a system, but Mehemet-Ali shook his head with a knowing 
smile. That was the only way he would have his womenkind 
initiated into the beauties of Mozart and Mendelssohn. I 
need not tell you that the arrangement came to nought." 

Nearly all these conversations which I have noted down 
here, without much attempt at transition, took place at dif- 
ferent times. One day, when he was relating some experi- 
ences of his wanderings through the less busy haunts of 
Egypt, I happened to say, "After all, Monsieur David, they 
did you good ; they inspired you with the themes of your most 
beautiful works." 



FIRST PERFORMANCE OF "LE DESERT." 161 

It was a very bitter smile that played on his lips, but only 
for a moment ; the next his face resumed its usual melan- 
choly expression, " Yes, they did me good. Do you know 
what occurred on the eve of the first performance of ' Le De- 
sert,' on the morrow of which I may say without undue pride 
that I found myself famous? Well, I will tell you. But for 
Azevedo, I should have gone supperless that night.* I met 
him on the Boulevards, and I almost forced him to take some 
tickets, for I was hungry and desperate. I had been running 
about that morning to dispose of some tickets for love or 
money, for what I feared most was an empty house. I had 
sold half a dozen, perhaps, but no one had paid me. Azevedo 
said, * Yes, send me some this afternoon.' * I can give them 
to you now,' I replied, ' for I carry my box office upon me.' 
Then he understood, and gave me the money. May God bless 
him for it, for ever and ever ! 

" Now would you like to hear what happened after the 
performance ? " he continued. " The place was full and the 
applause tremendous. Next morning the papers were full of 
my name ; I was, according to most of them, ' a revelation in 
music' But for all that I was living in an attic on a fifth 
floor, and had not sufficient money to pay my orchestra, let 
alone to arrange for another concert. As for the score of ' Le 
Desert,' it went the round of every publisher but one, and was 
declined by all these. At last the firm of Escudier offered me 
twelve hundred francs for it, which, of course, I was glad to 
take. They behaved handsomely after all, because they ar- 
ranged for a series of performances of it, which I was to direct 
at a fee of a thousand francs per performance. Those good 
Saint-Simoniens, the Pereiras, Enfantin, Michel Chevalier, 
had not lifted a finger to help me in my need ; nevertheless, 
I was not going to condemn good principles on account of the 
men who represented them not very worthily. Do you know 
w^hat was the result of this determination not to be unjust if 
others were? I embarked my little savings in a concern pre- 
sided over by one of them. I lost every penny of it ; since 
then I have never been able to save a penny." 

Felicien David was right — he never made money ; first of 
all, " because," as Auber said, " he was too great an artist to 



* Alexis Azevedo, one of the best musical critics of the time, as enthusiastic 
iiv his likes as unreasoning in his dislikes. He became a fervent admii-er of 
Felicien David. — Editok. 

12 



162 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

be popular ; " secondly, because the era of cantatas and ora- 
torios had not set in in France ; thirdly, because he composed 
very slowly ; and fourthly, " because he had no luck." The 
performances of his principal theatrical Avork were inter- 
rupted by the Coup-d'Etat. I am alluding to " La Perle du 
Bresil," wdiich, though represented at the Opera-Comique in 
1850, only ran for a few nights there, divergencies of opinion 
having arisen between the composer and M. Emile Perrin, 
who was afterwards director of the Grand Opera, and finally 
of the Comedie-Frangaise. When it was revived, on Novem- 
ber 22, 1851, the great event which was to transform the 
second reiDublic into the second empire was looming on the 
horizon. In 1862, Xapoleon III. made Felicien David an 
officer of the Legion d'Honneur; Louis-Philippe had be- 
stowed the knighthood upon him in '46 or '47, after a per- 
formance of his " Christophe Colomb " at the Tuileries. 
When Auber was told of the honour conferred, he said, 
" Napoleon is worse than the fish with the ring of Polycrates ; 
it did not take him eleven years to bring it back." Alex- 
andre Dumas opined that " it was a pearl hid in a dunghill 
for a decade or more." When, towards the end of the Em- 
pire, a street near the projected opera building was named 
after Auber, and when he could see his bust on the fagade of 
the building, the scaffolding of which had been removed, 
Auber remarked that the Emperor had been good enough to 
give him credit. " Now we are quits," he added, " for he 
was David's debtor for eleven years. At any rate, I'll do my 
best to square the account, so you need not order any hat- 
bands until '79." When '79 came, he had been in his tomb 
for nearly eight years. 

I wrote ^'ust now that Felicien David composed very 
slowly. But for this defect, if it was one, Verdi would have 
never put his name to the score of " Aida." The musical 
encyclopedias will tell you that Signer Ghislanzoni is the 
author of the libretto, and that the khedive applied to 
Signer Verdi for an opera on an Egyptian subject. The 
first part of that statement is utterly untrue, the other part 
is but partially true. Signer Ghislanzoni is at best but the 
adapter in verse and translator of the libretto. The original 
in prose is by M. Camille du Locle, founded on the scenario 
supplied by Mariette-Bey, whom Ismail-Pasha had given 
carte hlanche with regard to the music and words. Mariette- 
Bey intended from the very first to apply to a French play- 



THE ORIGIN OP VERDI'S "AIDA." 163 

Wright, when one night, being belated at Memphis in the 
Serapeum, and unable to return on foot, he all at once re- 
membered an old Egyptian legend. Next day he committed 
the scenario of it to paper, showed it to the khedive, and ten 
copies of it were printed in Alexandria. One of these was 
sent to M. du Locle, who developed the whole in prose. 

M. du Locle had also been authorized to find a French 
composer, but it is very certain that Mariette-Bey had in his 
mind's eye the composer of " Le Desert," though he may not 
have expressly said so. At any rate, M. du Locle applied to 
David, who refused, although the " retaining fee " was fifty 
thousand francs. It was because he could not comply with 
the first and foremost condition, to have the score ready in 
six months at the latest. Then Wagner was thought of. It 
is most probable that he would have refused. To Mariette- 
Bey belongs the credit furthermore of having entirely stage- 
managed the opera. 

Thus Felicien David, who had revealed "the East in 
music " to the Europeans, no more reaped the fruits of his 
originality than Decamps, who had revealed it in painting. 
Was not Auber right when he said to young Coquelin that 
the verdict on all things in this world might be summed up 
in the one phrase, " It's an injustice"? 



164 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 



CHAPTER VIII. - 

Three painters, and a school for pifferari — Gabriel Decamps, Euo^ene Delacroix, 
and Horace Vernet — The prices of pictures in the forties — Delacroix' iind no 
purchasers at all — Decamps' drawings fetch a thousand francs each — De- 
camps not a happy man — The cause of his unhappiness — The man and the 
painter — He finds no pleasure in being popular — Eugene Delacroix — His con- 
tempt for the bourgeoisie — A parallel between Delacroix and Shakespeare — 
Was Delacroix tall or short ? — His love of fiowers — His delicate health — His 
personal appearance — His indifference to the love-passion — -George Sand 
and Delacroix — A miscarried love-scene — Delacroix' housekeeper, Jenny 
Leguillou — Delacroix does not want to pose as a model for one of George 
Sand's heroes — Delacroix as a writer — His approval of Carlyle's dictum, 
" Show me how a man sings," etc. — His humour tempered by his reverence 
— His failure as a caricaturist — His practical jokes on would-be art-critics— 
Delacroix at home — His dress while at work — Horace Venaet's, Paul Dela- 
roche's, Ingres' — Early at work — He does not waste time over luncli — How, 
he spent liis evenings — His dislike of being reproduced in marl:»le or on 
canvas after his death — Horace Vernet — The contrast between the two men 
and the two artists — Vernet's appearance — His own account of how he be- 
came a painter — Moral and mental resemblance to Alexandre Dumas pere 
— His political opinions — Vernet and Nicholas I. — A bold answer — His 
opinion on the mental state of the Romanoffs — The comic side of Vernet's 
character — He thinks himself a Vauban — His interviews with M. Thiers — 
His admiration for everything military — His worship of Alfred de Vigny — 
His ineffectual attempts to paint a scene in connection with the storming of 
Constantine — Laurent- Jan. proposes to write an epic on it — He gives a sy- 
nopsis of the cantos — Laurent-Jan lives " on the fat of the land " for six 
months — A son of Napoleon's companion in exile. General Bertrand — The 
chaplain of " la Belle-Foule "—The first French priest who wore the English 
dress — Horace Vernet and the veterans of " la grande arm^e " — His studio 
during their occupancy of it as models — His bu(iget — His hatred of pifferari 
— A professor — The Quartier-Latin revisited. 

A FEW weeks ago,* when rummaging among old papers, 
documents, memoranda, etc., I came upon some stray leaves 
of a catalogue of a picture sale at the Hotel Bullion f in 1845. 
I had marked the prices realized by a score or so of paintings 
signed by men who, though living at that time, were already 
more or less famous, and many of whom have since then ac- 
quired a world-wide reputation. There was only one excep- 

* Written in 1882. 

t The Hotel Bullion was formerly the town mansion of the financier of that 
name, and situated in the Kue Coquilliere. — Editor. 



THE PRICE OF PICTURES IN THE FORTIES. 1G5 

tion to this — that of Herrera the Elder, who had been dead 
nearly two centuries, and whose name was, and is still, a 
household word among connoisseurs by reason of his having 
been the master of Velasquez. The handiwork of the irascible 
old man was knocked down for three francs seventy-five 
centimes, though no question was raised as to the genuine- 
ness of it in my hearing. It was a saint — the catalogue said 
no more, — and I have been in vain trying to recollect why I 
did not buy it. There must have been some cogent reason 
for my not having done so, for " the frame was no doubt 
worth double the money," to use an auctioneer's phrase. 
Was it suspicion, or what? At any rate, two years later, I 
heard that it had been sold to an American for fourteen 
thousand francs, though, after all, that was no guarantee of 
its value. 

In those days it was certainly better to be a live artist 
than a dead one, for, a little further on among these pages, I 
came upon a marginal note of the prices fetched by three 
works of Meissonier, " Le Corps de Garde," " Une partie de 
piquet," and " Un jeune homme regardant des dessins," all 
of which had been in the salon of that year,* and each of 
which fetched 3000 francs. I should not like to say what 
their purchasing price would be to-day, allowing for the 
difference in the value of money. Further on still, there is a 
note of a picture by Alfred de Dreux, which realized a similar 
amount. Allowing for that same difference in the value of 
money, that w^ork w^ould probably not find a buyer now among 
real connoisseurs at 200 francs. f At the same time, the 
original sketch of David's " Serment du Jeu de Paume" did 
not find a purchaser at 2500 francs, the reserve price. A 
landscape by Jules x\ndre, a far greater artist than Alfred de 
Dreux, went for 300 francs, and Baron's " Oies du Frere 
Philippe " only realized 200 francs more. There was not a 

* The annual salon was held in the Louvre then ; in 1849 it was transferred 
to the Tuileries. In 1850, '51, and '52 it was removed to the galleries of the 
Palais-Koyal ; in 1853 and '54 the salon was held in the Hotel des Menus- 
Plaisirs, in the Faubourg Poissonniere, which became afterwards the storehouse 
for the scenery of the Grand Opera. In 1855 the exhibition took place in a 
special annex of the Palais de I'Industrie ; after that, it was lodged in the Palais 
itself — Editor. 

t Alfred de Dreux was not an unknown figure in London society. He came 
in 1848. He was a kind of Comte d'Orsay, and painted chiefly equestrian fig- 
ures. After the Coup d'Etat he returned to Paris, and was patronized by society, 
and subsequently by ]Sapoleon III. himself, whose portrait he paintedl He was 
killed in a duehthe cause of which has never been revealed.— Editor. 



106 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

single " bid " for Eugene Delacroix' " Marc-Aurele," and 
when he did sell a picture it was for 500 or 600 francs ; now- 
adays it would fetch 100,000 francs. On the other hand, the 
drawings of Decamps' admirable " Histoire de Samson " 
realized 1000 francs each. 

Yet Gabriel Decamps was a far unhappier man than 
Eugene Delacroix. The pictures rejected by the public be- 
came the " apples " of Delacroix' eyes, with which he would 
not part, subsequently, at any price, as in the case of his 
" Marino Faliero." Decamps, one day, while he lived in the 
Faubourg Saint-Denis, deliberately destroyed one hundred 
and forty drawings, the like of whicli were eagerly bought 
up for a thousand francs apiece, though at present they 
would be worth four times that amount. Delacroix was con- 
tent with his God-given genius ; " he saw everything he had 
made, and behold it was very good." Decamps fumed and 
fretted at the supposed systematic neglect of the Govern- 
ment, which did not give him a commission. " You paint 
with a big brush, but you are not a great painter," said Sir 
Joshua to a would-be Michael- Angelo. To Gabriel Decamps 
the idea of being allowed or invited by the State to cover a 
number of yards of canvas or wall or ceiling was so attractive 
that he positively lost his sleep and his appetite over it. It 
was, perhaps, the only bitter drop in his otherwise tolerably 
full cup of happiness, but that one drop very frequently em- 
bittered the whole. He had many good traits in his charac- 
ter, though he was not uniformly good-tempered. There 
was an absolute indifference as to the monetary results of his 
calling, and an inherent generosity to those who " had fallen 
by the way." But he was something of a bear and a recluse, 
not because he disliked society, but because he deliberately 
suppressed his sociable qualities, lest he should arouse the 
suspicion of making them the stepping-stone to his ambition. 
No man ever misread the lesson, " Do well and fear not," so 
utterly as did Decamps. He was never tired of well-doing ; 
and he was never tired of speculating what the world would 
think of it. There is not a single picture from his brush 
that does not contain an original thought; he founded an 
absolutely new school — no small thing to do. The world at 
large acknowdedged as much, and yet he would not enjoy the 
fruits of that recognition, because it lacked the " official 
stamp." When Decamps consented to forget his real or 
fancied grievances he became a capital companion, provided 



EUGENE DELACROIX. 167 

one had a taste for bitter and scathing satire. I fancy Jona- 
than Swift must have been something like Gabriel Decamps 
in his daily intercourse with his familiars. But he rarely 
said an ill-natured thing of his fellow-artists. His strictures 
were reserved for the political men of his time, and of the 
preceding reign. The Bourbons he des23ised from the bottom 
of his heart, and during the Restauration his contempt found 
vent in caricatures which, at the moment, must have seared 
like a red-hot iron. He had kept a good many of these 
ephemeral productions, and, I am bound to say, they struck 
one afterwards as unnecessarily severe. " If they " (meaning 
the Bourbons) " had continued to reign in France," he said 
one day, " I would have applied for letters of naturalization 
to the Sultan." 

Decamps was killed, like Gericault, by a fall off his 
horse, but long before that he had ceased to work. " I 
cannot add much to my reputation, and do not care to add 
to my store," he said. In 1855, the world positively rang 
with his name, but I doubt whether this universal admi- 
ration gave him much satisfaction. He exhibited more 
than fifty works at the Exj^osition Universelle of that year, 
a good many of which had been rejected by the " hanging 
committees " of previous salons. True to his system, he 
rarely, perhaps never directly, called the past judgment in 
question, but he lived and died a dissatisfied man. Unlike 
Mirabeau, who had not the courage to be unpopular. De- 
camps derived no gratification from popularity. 

I knew Eugene Delacroix better than any of the others 
in the marvellous constellation of painters of that period, 
and our friendship lasted till the day of his death, in De- 
cember, 1863. I was also on very good terms with Horace 
Vernet; but though the latter was perhaps a more lively 
companion, the stronger attraction was towards the former. 
I was one of the few friends whom he tolerated whilst at 
w^ork. Our friendship lasted for nearly a quarter of a cent- 
ury, and during that time there w^as never a single unpleas- 
antness between us, though I am bound to admit that Dela- 
croix' temper was very uncertain. Among all those men 
w^ho had a profound, ineradicable contempt for the bour- 
geois, 1 have only knowm one ^Yho despised him even to a 
greater extent than he ; it was Gustave Flaubert. Though 
Delacroix' manners were perfect, he could scarcely be polite 
to the middle classes. With the exception of Dante and 



168 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Shakespeare, Delacroix was probably the greatest poet that 
ever lived ; a greater poet undoubtedly than Victor Hugo, in 
that he was absolutely indifferent to the material results of 
his genius. If Shakespeare and the author of the " Infer- 
no " had painted, they would have painted like Delacroix ; 
his '' Sardanapale " is the Byronic poem, condensed and 
transferred to canvas. 

Long as I knew Delacroix, I had never been able to make 
out whether he was tall or short, and most of his friends and 
acquaintances were equally puzzled. As we stood around his 
coffin many were surprised at its length. His was decidedly 
a curious face, at times stony in its immobility, at others 
quivering from the tip of chin to the juncture of the eye- 
brows, and with a peculiar movement of the nostrils that 
was almost pendulum-like in its regularity. It gave one the 
impression of their being assailed by some unpleasant smell, 
and, one day, when Delacroix was in a light mood, I re- 
marked upon it. " You are perfectly right," he replied ; " I 
always fancy there is corruption in the air, but it is not 
necessarily of a material kind." 

Be this as it may, he liked to surround himself with 
flowers, and his studio was often like a hothouse, apart from 
the floral decorations. The temperature was invariably very 
high, and even then he would shiver now and again. I have 
always had an idea that Delacroix had Indian blood in his 
veins, which idea was justified to a certain extent by his ap- 
pearance, albeit that there was no tradition to that effect in 
his family. But it was neither the black hair, the olive skin, 
nor the peculiar formation of the features which forced that 
conclusion upon me ; it was the character of Delacroix, which 
for years and years I endeavoured to read thoroughly, with- 
out succeeding to any appreciable degree. There was one 
trait that stood out so distinctly that the merest child might 
have perceived it — his honesty ; but the rest was apparently 
a mass of contradiction. It is difficult to imagine a poet, 
and especially a painter-poet, without an absorbing passion 
for some woman — not necessarily for the same woman ; to 
my knowledge Delacroix had no such passion, for one can 
scarcely adniit that Jenny Leguillou, his housekeeper, could 
have inspired such a feeling. True, when I first knew Dela- 
croix he was over forty, but those who had known him at 
twenty and twenty-five never hinted at any romantic attach- 
ment or even at a sober, homely affection. And assuredly a 



EUGENE DELACROIX AND GEORGE SAND. 109 

man of forty is not invulnerable in that respect. And yet, 
the woman who positively bewitched, one after another, so 
many of Delacroix' eminent contemporaries, Jules Sandeau, 
Alfred de Musset, Michel de Bourges, Chopin, Pierre Leroux, 
Cabet, Lammenais, etc., had no power over him. 

Paul de Musset, perhaps as a kind of revenge for the 
wrongs suffered by his brother, once gave an amusing de- 
scription of the miscarried attempt of George Sand " to net " 
Eugene Delacroix. 

It would appear that the painter had shown signs of yield- 
ing to the charms which few men Avere able to withstand, or, 
at any rate, that G-eorge Sand fancied she could detect such 
signs. Whether it was from a wish on George Sand's part 
to precipitate matters or to nip the thing in the bud, it would 
be difficult to determine, but it is certain that she pursued 
her usual tactics — that is, she endeavoured to provoke an ad- 
mission of her admirer's feeling. Though I subsequently 
ascertained that Paul de Musset's story was substantially 
true, I am not altogether prepared, knowing his animosity 
against her, to accept his hinted theory of the lady's desire 
" de brusquer les fian^ailles." 

One morning, then, while Delacroix was at work, George 
Sand entered his studio. She looked out of spirits, and al- 
most immediately stated the purpose of her visit. 

" My poor Eugene ! " she began ; " I am afraid I have 
got sad news for you." 

" Oh, indeed," said Delacroix, without interrupting his 
tvork, and just giving her one of his cordial smiles in guise 
of welcome. 

" Yes, my dear friend, I have carefully consulted my own 
heart, and the upshot is, I am grieved to tell you, that 1 feel 
I cannot and could never love you." 

Delacroix kept on painting. " Is that a fact ? " he said. 

" Yes, and I ask you once more to pardon me, and to give 
me credit for my candour — my poor Delacroix." 

Delacroix did not budge from his easel. 

"You are angry with me, are you not? You will never 
forgive me?" 

" Certainly I will. Only I want you to keep quiet for ten 
minutes ; I have got a bit of sky there which has caused me 
a good deal of trouble, it is just coming right. Go and sit 
down or else take a little walk, and come back in ten min- 
utes." 



170 AX ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Of course, George Sand did not return ; and equally, of 
course, did not tell the stor}' to any one, but somehow it 
leaked out. Perhaps Jenny Leguillou had overheard the 
scene — she was quite capable of listening behind a screen or 
door — and reporting it. Delacroix himself, when " chaffed " 
about it, never denied it. There was no need for him to do 
so, because theoretically it redounded to the lady's honour ; 
had she not rejected his advances ? 

I have noted it here to prove that the poetry of Delacroix 
n'allait pas se fauliler dans les jupons, because, though we 
would not take it for granted that where George Sand failed 
others would have succeeded, it is nevertheless an authenti- 
cated fact that only one other man among the many on whom 
she tried her wiles remained proof against them. That man 
was Prosper Merimee, the author of ''Colomba" and " Car- 
men," the friend of Panizzi. '' Quand je fais un roman, je 
choisis mon sujet ; je ne veux pas que Ton me decoupe pour 
en faire un. Madame Sand ne met pas ses amants dans son 
coeur, elle les mets dans ses livres ; et elle le fait si diable- 
ment vite qu'on n'a pas le temps de la devancer." Merimee 
was right, each of George Sand's earlier books had been 
written with the heart's blood of one of the victims of her 
insatiable passions — for I should not like to prostitute the 
word *' love " to her liaisons ; and I am glad to think that 
Eugene Delacroix was spared that ordeal. It would have 
killed him ; and the painter of " Sardanapale " was more 
precious to his own art than to hers, which, with all due 
deference to eminent critics, left an unpleasant sensation to 
those who were fortunate enough to be free from incipient 
hysteria. 

A liaison with George Sand would have killed Eugene 
Delacroix, I am perfectly certain ; for he would have staked 
gold, she would have only played with counters. It would 
have been the vitiated atmosphere in which the cradle of his 
life and of his genius — which were one, in this instance — 
would have been extinguished. 

As it was, that candle burned very low at times, because, 
during the years I knew Delacroix, he had nearly always one 
foot in the grave ; the healthy breezes of art's unpolluted air 
made that candle burn brightly now and again ; hence the 
difference in quality, as striking, of some of his pictures. 

Perhaps on account of his delicate health, Delacroix was 
not very fond of society, in which, however, he was ever 



DELACROIX AS A WRITER. 171 

welcome, and particularly fitted to shine, though he rarely 
attempted to do so. I have said that Dante and Shakespeare, 
if they had painted, would have painted as Delacroix did ; I 
am almost tempted to add that if Delacroix' vocation had 
impelled him that way, he would have sur.g as they sang — of 
course, I do not mean that he would have soared as high, but 
his name would have lived in literature as it does in painting, 
though perhaps not with so brilliant a halo around it. For, 
unlike many great painters of his time, Delacroix was essen- 
tially lettre. One has but to read some of his critical essays 
in the Revue des Deux Maudes of that period, to be con- 
vinced of that at once. Theophile Gautier said, one even- 
ing, that it was " the style of a poet in a hurry." The sen- 
tences give one the impression of newly-minted golden coins. 
Nearly every one contains a thought, which, if reduced to 
small change, would still make an admirable paragraph. lie 
gives to his readers what he expects from his authors — a sen- 
sation, a shock in two or three lines. The sentences are 
modelled upon his favourite prose author, who, curious to re- 
late, was none other than Napoleon I. I often tried to in- 
terest him in English literature. Unfortunately, he knew no 
English to speak of, and was obliged to have recourse to 
translations. Walter Scott he thought long-winded, and, 
after a few attempts at Shakespeare in French, he gave it up. 
" (^a ne pent pas etre cela," he said. But he had several 
French versions of " Gulliver's Travels," all of which he read 
in turn. One day, I quoted to him a sentence from Carlyle's 
" Lectures on Heroes : " " Show me how a man sings, and I 
will tell you how he will fight." " C'est cela," he said ; " if 
Shakespeare had been a general, he would have won his bat- 
tles like Napoleon, by thunderclaps " (par des coups de 
foudre). 

Delacroix had what a great many Frenchmen lack — a 
keen sense of humour, but it was considerably tempered by 
what, for the want of a better term, I may call the bump of 
reverence. He could not be humorous at the expense of 
those he admired or respected, consequently his attempts at 
caricature at the early period of his career in Le Nain Jaune 
were a failure ; because Delacroix' admiration and rt'S23ect 
were not necessarily reserved for those with whom he agreed 
in art or politics, but for everyone who attempted something 
great or useful, though he failed. The man who, at the age 
of sixty, would enthusiastically dilate upon his meeting forty 



172 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

years before with Gros, whose hat he had knocked off by 
accident, Avas not the likely one to hold up to ridicule the 
celebrity of the hour or day ivWiont malice prepense. And 
this malice prepense never uprose within him, except in the 
presence of some bumptious, ignorant nobody. Then it posi- 
tively boiled over, and he did not mind what trick he played 
his interlocutor. The latter might be a wealthy would-be 
patron, an influential Government official, or a well-known 
picture-dealer ; it was all the same to Delacroix, who had an. 
utter contempt for patronage, nepotism, and money. It was 
as good as a clever scene in a comedy to see him rise and 
draw himself up to his full height, in order to impress his 
victim with a sense of the importance of what he was going 
to say. To get an idea of him under such circumstances, one 
must go and see his portrait in the Louvre, painted by him- 
self, with the semi-supercilious, semi-benevolent smile play- 
ing upon the parted lips, and showing the magnificent regu- 
lar set of teeth, of which he was very proud, beneath the 
black bushy moustache, which reminds one curiously of that 
of Rembrandt. Of course, the victim was mesmerized, and 
stood listening with all attention, promising himself to 
remember every word of the spoken essay on art, with the 
view of producing it as his own at the first favourable oppor- 
tunity. And he generally did, to his own discomfiture and 
the amusement of his hearers, who, if they happened to know 
Delacroix, which was the case frequently, invariably detected 
the source of the speaker's information. I once heard a 
spoken essay on Holbein reproduced in that way, which 
would have simply made the fortune of any comic writer. 
The human parrot had not even been parrot-like, for he had 
muddled the whole in transmission. I took some pains to 
reproduce his exact words, and I never saw Delacroix laugh as 
when I repeated it to him. For, as a rule, and even when he 
was mystifying that kind of numskull in the presence of half 
a dozen well-informed friends, Delacroix remained perfectly 
serious, though the others had to bite their lips lest they 
should explode. In fact, it would have been difficult at any 
time to guess or discover, beneath the well-bred man of the 
world, with his charming, courtly, though somewhat distant 
manner, the painter who gave us " La Barque de Dante," 
and " Les Massacres de Scio ;" still, Delacroix was that man 
of the world, exceedingly careful of his appearance, particu- 
lar to a degree about his nails, which he wore very long, 



DELACROIX AT HOME. 173 

dressed to perfection, and, in spite of the episode with George 
Sand, recorded above, most ingratiating with women. 

Different altogether was he in his studio. Though he 
was '' at liome " from three till five, to visitors of both sexes, 
it was distinctly understood that he would not interrupt his 
work for them, or play the host as tlie popular jjainter of 
to-day is supposed to do. The atelier, encumbered with 
bric-a-brac and sumptuous hangings and afternoon tea, had 
not been invented : if the host wore a velvet coat, a Byronic 
collar, and gorgeous papooshes, it was because he liked these 
tilings himself, not because he intended to impress his visit- 
ors. As a rule, the host, though in his youth perhaps he had 
been fond of extravagant costumes, did not like them : Hor- 
ace Vernet often worked in his shirt-sleeves, Paul Delaroche 
nearly always wore a blouse, and Ingres, until he became "a 
society man," which was very late in life, donned a dressing- 
gown. Delacroix was, if anything, more slovenly than the 
rest when at work. An old jacket buttoned up to the chin, 
a large muffler round his neck, a cloth cap pulled over his 
ears, and a pair of thick felt slippers made up his usual 
garb. For he was nearly alwa3^s shivering with cold, and 
had an affection of the throat, besides, which compelled him 
to be careful. " But for my wrapping up, I should have 
been dead at thirty," he said. 

Nevertheless, at the stroke of eight, winter and summer, 
he was in his studio, which he did not leave until dark, dur- 
ing six months of the year, and a little before, during the 
other six. Contrary to the French hal)it, he never took 
luncheon, and generally dined at home a little after six — the 
fatigue of dining out being too much for him. 

I may safely say that I was one of Delacroix' friends, 
with whom he talked without restraint. I often went to 
him of an evening when the weather prevented his going 
abroad, which, in his state of health, was very often. He 
always chafed at such confinement ; for though not fond of 
society in a general way, he liked coming to the Boulevards, 
after his work was over, and mixing with his familiars. De- 
lacroix smoked, but, unlike many addicted to tobacco, could 
not sit idle. His hands, as well as his brain, wanted to be 
busy ; consequently, when imprisoned by rain or snow, he 
sat sketching figures or groups, talking all the while. By 
then his name had become familiar to every art student 
throughout the world, and he often received llattering letters 



174 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

from distant parts. One evening, shortly after the death of 
David d'Angers, to an episode in whose life I have devoted 
a considerable space in these notes, Delacroix received an 
American newspaper, the title of which I have forgotten, 
but which contained an exceedingly able article on the great 
sculptor, as an artist, and as a man. It wound up with the 
question, "And what kind of monument will be raised to 
him by the man who virtually shortened his life by. sending 
him into exile, because David remained true to the repub- 
lican principles which Napoleon only shammed — or, if not 
shammed, deliberately trod underfoot to ascend a tyrant's 
throne?" 

I translated the whole of the article, and, when I came to 
the last lines, Delacroix shook his head sadly. " You re- 
member," he said, " the answer of our friend Dumas, when 
they asked him for a subscription towards a monument to a 
man whom every one had reviled in the beginning of his 
career. ' They had better be content with the stones they 
threw at him during his existence. No monument they can 
raise will be so eloquent of their imbecility and his genius.' 
I may take it," he went on, " that such a question will be 
raised one day after my death, perhaps many years after I 
am gone. If you are alive you will, by my will, raise your 
voice against the project. I have painted my own portrait ; 
while I am here, I will take care that it be not reproduced ; 
I will forbid them to do so after I am at rest. There shall 
not be a bust on my tomb." 

About a fortnight before his death he made a will to that 
effect, and up to the present hour (1883) its injunctions have 
been respected. Delacroix lies in a somewhat solitary spot 
in Pere-Lachaise. Neither emblem, bust, nor statue adorns his 
tomb, which was executed according to his own instructions. 
" They libelled me so much during my life," he said one day, 
"that^ I do not want them to libel me after my death, on 
canvas or in marble. They flattered me so much afterwards, 
that I knew their flattery to be fulsome, and, if anything, I 
am more afraid of it than of their libels." 

It would be difflcult to find a greater contrast than there 
existed between Eugene Delacroix, both as a man and an 
artist, and Horace Vernet. The one loved his art with the 
passionate devotion of an intensely poetical lover for his way- 
ward mistress, whom to cease wooing for a moment might 
mean an irreparable breach or, at least, a long estrangement ; 



HORACE VERNET. 175 

the other loved his with the calm affection of the cherished 
husband for the faithful wife who had blessed him with a 
numerous offspring, whom he had known from his very in- 
fancy, a marriage with whom had been decided upon when he 
was a mere lad, whom he might even neglect for a little while 
without the bond being in any way relaxed. According to 
their respective certificates of birth, Vernet was the senior by 
ten years of Delacroix. When I first knew them, about 1840, 
Vernet looked ten years younger than Delacroix. If they 
had chosen to disguise themselves as musketeers of the Louis 
XIII. period, Vernet would have reminded one of both Aramis 
and d'Artagnan ; Delacroix, of Athos. 

Montaigne spoke Latin before he could speak French ; 
Vernet drew men and horses before he had mastered either 
French or Latin. His playthings were stumpy, worn-out 
brashes, discarded palettes, and sticks of charcoal; his alpha- 
bet, the pictures of the Louvre, where his father occupied a 
set of apartments, and where he was born, a month before 
the outbreak of the first Revolution. He once said to me, 
" Je suis peintre comme il y des hommes qui sont rois — 
parceque ils ne peuvent pas etre autre chose. II fallait un 
homme de genie pour sortir d'un pared bourbier et malheu- 
reusement je n'ai que du talent." By the "bourbier" he 
meant his great-grandfather, his two grandfathers, and his 
father, all of whom were painters and draughtsmen. 

Posterity will probably decide whether Horace Vernet 
was a genius or merely a painter of great talent, but it will 
scarcely convey an approximate idea of the charm of the man 
himself. There was only one other of his contemporaries 
who exercised the same spell on his companions — Alexandre 
Dumas pere. Though Vernet was a comparative dwarf by 
the side of Dumas, the men had the same qualities, physical, 

»< moral, and mental. Neither of them knew what bodily 
fatigue meant ; both could work for fourteen or fifteen hours 
a day io: a fortnight or a month ; both would often have " a 
long bout of idleness," as they called it, which, to others not 
endowed with their strength and mental activity, would have 
meant hard labour. Both were fond of earning money, 
fonder still of spending it ; both created almost without an 
effort. Dumas roared with laughter while writing ; Vernet 
sang at the top of his voice while painting, or bandied jokes 
with his visitors, wdio might come and go as they liked at all 

^ hours. Dumas, especially in the earlier days of his career, 



176 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

had to read a great deal before he could catch the local 
colour of his novels and plays — he himself has told us that he 
was altogether ignorant of the history of France. But when 
he had finished reading up the period in question, he wrote 
as if he had been born in it. Vernet was a walking cyclo- 
paedia on military costume ; he knew, perhaps, not much 
more than that, but that he knew thoroughly, and never had 
to think twice about the uniforms of his models, and, as he 
himself said, " I never studied the thing, nor did I learn to 
paint or to draw. According to many people, I do not know 
how to paint or to draw now : it may be so ; at any rate I 
have the comfort of having wasted nobody's time in trying 
to learn." 

Like Dumas, he was very proud of his calling and of the 
name he had made for himseli in it, which he would not 
have changed for the title of emperor — least of all for that of 
king ; for, like his great contemporary, he was a republican 
at heart. It did not diminish either his or Dumas' admira- 
tion for Napoleon I. " I can understand an absolute mon- 
archy, nay, a downright autocracy, and I can understand a 
republic," said Vernet, " but I fail to understand the use of a 
constitutional king, just because it implies and entails the 
principle of succession by inheritance. An autocracy means 
one ruler over so many millions of subjects; a constitutional 
monarchy means between five and six hundred direct rulers, 
so many millions of indirect ones, and one subject who is 
called king. Who would leave his child the inheritance of 
such slavery? A la bonne heure, give me a republic such as 
we understand it in France, all rulers, all natural-born kings, 
gods in mortals' disguise who dance to the piping of the 
devil. There have been two such since I was born ; there 
may be another half-dozen like these within the next two 
centuries, because, before }^ou can have an ideal republic, you 
must have ideal republicans, and Nature cannot afford to 
fritter away her most precious gifts on a lot of down-at-heels 
lawyers and hobnail-booted scum. She condescends now 
and then to make an ideal tyrant — she will never make a 
nation of ideal republicans. You may just as well ask her to 
make a nation of Kaffaelles or Michael Angelos, or Shake- 
speares or Molieres." 

Both men, in spite of their republican opinions, were 
personally attached to some members of the Orleans family ; 
both had an almost invincible objection to the Bourbons. 



VERNET AND NICHOLAS I. 177 

Vernet had less occasion to be outspoken in his dislike than 
Dumas, but he refused to receive the Due de Berri when the 
latter offered to come and see the battle-pieces Vernet was 
painting for the then Duke of Orleans (Louis-Philippe). 
Vernet had stipulated that his paintings should illustrate 
exclusively the campaigns of the first Republic and the 
Empire, though subsequently he depicted some episodes of 
the Algerian wars, in which the son of the king had distin- 
guished himself. " Tricolour cockades or no pictures," he 
remarked, and Louis-Philippe good-humouredly acquiesced. 
Though courteous to a degree, he never minced matters to 
either king or beggar. While in Russia JS^icholas took a 
great fancy to him. It appears that the painter, who must 
have looked even smaller by the side of the Czar than he 
did by that of Dumas, had accompanied the former, if not 
on a perilous, at least on a very uncomfortable journey in 
the middle of the winter. He and the Emperor were the 
only two men who had borne the hardships and privations 
without grumbling, nay, with Mark Tapleyean cheerfulness. 
That kind of fortitude was at all times a passport to Nich- 
olas' heart, doubly so in this instance, by reason of Vernet's 
by no means robust appearance. From that moment Nich- 
olas became very attached to, and would often send for, him. 
They would often converse on subjects even more serious, 
and, one day, after the partition of Poland, Nicholas pro- 
posed that Vernet should paint a picture on the subject. 

" I am afraid I cannot do it, sire," was the answer. " I 
have never painted a Christ on the cross." 

*' The moment I had said it," continued Vernet, when he 
told me the story, which is scarcely known, " I thought my 
last hour had struck. I am positively certain that a Russian 
w^ould have paid these words with his life, or at least with 
lifelong exile to Siberia. I shall never forget the look he 
gave me ; there was a murderous gleam in the eyes ; but it 
was over in an instant. Nevertheless, I feel convinced that 
Nicholas was mad, and, what is more, I feel equally convinced 
that there is incipient madness throughout the whole of the 
Romanoff family. I saw a good many of its members during 
my stay in Russia. They all did and said things which would 
have landed ordinary men and women in a lunatic asylum. 
At the same time there was an unmistakable touch of genius 
about some of them. I often endeavoured to discuss the 
matter with the resident foreign physicians, but, as you may 

13 



178 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

imagine, they were very reticent. But mark my words, one 
day there will be a terrible flare-up. Of course, the foreigner, 
who sees the superstitious reverence, the slavish respect with 
which they are surrounded, scarcely wonders that these men 
and women should, in the end, consider themselves above, 
and irresponsible to, the millions of grovelling mortals whom 
they rule ; in spite of all this, the question can only be one of 
time, and when the Russian empire falls, the cataclysm will 
be unlike any other that has preceded it." 

There was a comic side to Horace Vernet's character. By 
dint of painting battle-pieces he had come to consider him- 
self an authority on strategy and tactics, and his criticisms 
on M. Thiers' system of fortifications used to set us roaring. 
I am under the impression — though I will not strictly vouch 
for it — that at the recommendation of one or two of the in- 
veterate jokers of our set, Laurent-Jan* and Mery, he had a 
couple of interviews with M. Theirs, but we never ascertained 
the result of them. It was almost certain that the minister of 
Louis-Philippe, who at one period of his life considered himself 
a Napoleon and a Vauban rolled into one, did not entertain 
Vernet's suggestions with the degree of enthusiasm to which 
he thought them entitled ; at any rate, from that time, the 
mention of M. Thiers' name generally provoked a contempt- 
uous shrug of the shoulders on Vernet's part. " C'est tout a fait 
comme Napoleon et Jomini, mon cher Vernet," said Laurent- 
Jan ; " mais, apres tout, qu'est que cela vous fait? La pos- 
terite jugera entre vous deux, eile saura bien debrouiller la 
part que vous avez contribuee a ces travaux immortels." 

Much as Horace Vernet admired his great contemporaries 
in art and literature, his greatest worship was reserved for 
Alfred de Vigny, the soldier-poet, though the latter was by 
no means a sympathetic companion. Next to his society, 
which was rarely to be had, he preferred that of Arthur 
Bertrand, the son of Napoleon's companion in exile. Arthur 
Bertrand had an elder brother, Napoleon Bertrand, who, at 
the storming of Constantine, put on a new pair of white kid 
gloves, brought from Paris for the purpose. Horace Vernet 
made at least fifty sketches of that particular incident, but he 



tirely forgotten now save by such men as MM. Arsene Iloussaye and Roger de 
Beauvoir, who were his contemporaries, lie was the author of a clever parody 
on Kotzebue's " Menschenhasz und Keue," known on the English stage as " The 
Strano-cr.'"— Editor. 



A PROJECTED EPIC. 179 

never painted the picture. " I could not do it justice," he 
said, when remonstrated with for his procrastination. " I 
should fail to realize the grandeur of the thing." Thereupon 
Laurent-Jan, who had no bump of reverence, proposed a poem 
jn so many cantos, to be illustrated by Vernet. I give the 
plan as developed by the would-be author. 

1. The kid in its ancestral home among the mountains. 
A mysterious voice from heaven tells it that its skin will be re- 
quired for a pair of gloves. The kid objects, and inquires why 
the skin of some other kid will not do as well. The voice 
reveals the glorious purpose of the gloves. The kid consents, 
and at the same moment a hunter appears in sight. The kid, 
instead of taking to its heels, assumes a favourable position to 
be shot. It makes a dying speech. 

2. A glove-shop on the Boulevard. Enter Napoleon Ber- 
trand, asking for a pair of gloves. The girl tells him that 
she has only one pair left, and communicates the legend 
connected with it. The price is twenty francs. Napoleon 
Bertrand demurs at it, and tells her, in his turn, what the 
gloves are wanted for. The girl refuses to take the money, 
and her employer, overhearing the conversation, dismisses her 
there and then. He keeps the wages due to her as the price 
of the gloves. Napoleon Bertrand puts the latter in his 
pocket, offers the girl his arm, and invites her to breakfast in 
a cabinet par ticulier^ " en tout bien, en tout, honneur." To 
prove his perfectly honourable intentions, he tells her the 
story of Jeanne d'Arc. The girl's imagination is fired by the 
recital, and after luncheon sh-^goes in search of a book on the 
subject. An unscrupulous, dishonest second-hand bookseller 
palms off an edition of Voltaire's " La Pucelle." The girl 
writes to Napoleon Bertrand to tell him that he has made a 
fool of her, that Jeanne d'Arc was no better than she should 
be, and that she is going to join the harem of the Bey of 
Constantine. 

3. Napoleon Bertrand stricken with remorse before Con- 
stantine. Orders given for the assault. Napoleon Bertrand 
looks for his gloves, and finds that they are too small. He can 
just get them on, but cannot grasp the handle of his swoi'd. 
His servant announces a mysterious stranger, a veiled female 
stranger. She is admitted ; she has made her escape from 
the harem ; a mysterious voice from heaven — the same that 
spoke to the kid — having warned her the night before that 
the gloves would be too small, and that she was to let a piece 



180 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

in. Eeconciliation. Tableau. The bugles are sounding 
" boot and saddle." Storming of Constantine. 

I have reproduced the words of Laurent- Jan ; I will not 
attempt to reproduce his manner, which was simply inimi- 
table. Horace Vernet and Arthur Bertrand shook with 
laughter, and the latter offered Laurent-Jan to keep him for 
a twelvemonth if he would write the poem. Jan consented, 
and lived upon the fat of the land during that time, but the 
poem never saw the light. 

Arthur Bertrand was one of the most jovial fellows of his 
time. He, Eugene Sue, and Latour-Mezerai were the best 
customers of the florist on the Boulevards. It was he who 
accompanied the Prince de Joinville to St. Helena to bring 
back the remains of Napoleon. After their return a new 
figure joined our set now and then. It was the Abbe Coque- 
reau, the chaplain of " La Belle-Poule." The Abbe Coque- 
reau was the tirst French Catholic priest who discarded the 
gown and the shovel hat, and adopted that of the English 
clergy. He was a charming man, and by no means straight- 
laced, but he drew the line at accompanying Arthur in his 
nightly perambulations. One evening he, Arthur Bertrand, 
and Alexandre Dumas were strolling along the Boulevards 
when the latter tried to make the abbe enter the Varietes. 
The abbe held firm, or rather took to his heels. 

In those days there were still a great many veterans of 
the grande armee about, and a great deal of Horace Vernet's 
money went in entertaining them at the various cafes and 
restaurants — especially when he was preparing sketches for 
a new picture. The ordinary model, clever and eminently 
useful as he was at that period, was willingly discarded for 
the old and bronzed warrior of the Empire, some of whom 
were even then returning from Africa. " They may just jis 
well earn the money I pay the others," he said ; consequently 
it was not an unusual thing to see a general, a couple of colo- 
nels, half a dozen captains, and as many sergeants and pri- 
vates, all of whom had served under Napoleon, in Verna's 
studio at the same time. Of course, the ofiicers were only 
too pleased to give their services gratuitously, but Vernet had 
a curious way of making up his daily budget. Twenty mod- 
els at four francs — for models earned no more then — eighty 
francs. Fifteen of them refused thier pay. The eighty 
francs to be divided between five. And the five veterans en- 
joyed a magnificent income for weeks and weeks at a time. 



A PROFESSOR OF STREET MUSIC. 181 

Truth compels me to state, however, that during those 
weeks " the careful mother could not have taken her daugh- 
t3r " to Vernet's studio. A couple of live horses, not unfre- 
quently three, an equal number of stuffed ones, camp kettles, 
broken limbers, pieces of artillery, an overturned ammuni- 
tion waggon, a collection of uniforms, that would have made 
the fortune of a costumier, scattered all over the place ; 
drums, swords, guns and saddles : and, amidst this confusion, 
a score of veterans, some of whom had been comrades-in-arms 
and who seemed oblivious, for the time being, of their hard- 
earned promotion in the company of those who had been less 
lucky than the}^, every man smoking his hardest and telling 
his best garrison story : all these made up a scene worthy of 
Vernet himself, but somewhat appalling to the civilian who 
happened to come upon it unawares. 

Vernet was never happier than when at work under such 
circumstances. Perched on a movable scaffolding or on a 
high ladder, he reminded one much more of an acrobat than 
of a painter. Like Dumas, he could work amidst a very Ba- 
bel of conversation, but the sound of music, however good, 
disturbed him. In those days, itinerant Italian musicians 
and pifferari, who have disappeared from the streets of Paris 
altogether since the decree of expulsion of '81, were numer- 
ous, and grew more numerous year by year. I, for one, feel 
sorry for their disappearance, for I remember having spent 
half a dozen most delightful evenings listening to them. 

The thing happened in this way. Though my regular 
visits to the Quartier- Latin had ceased long ago, I returned 
now and then to my old haunts during the years '63 and '64, 
in company of a young Euglishman who was finishing his 
medical studies in Paris, who had taken up his quarters on 
the left bank of the Seine, and who has since become a phy- 
sician in very good practice in the French capital. He had 
been specially recommended to me, and I Avas not too old to 
enjoy an evening once a week or a fortnight among my jun- 
iors. At a cafe, which has been demolished since to make 
room for a much more gorgeous establishment at the corners 
of the Boulevards Saint-Michel and Saint-Germain, we used 
to notice an elderly gentleman, scrupulously neat and exqui- 
sitely clean, though his clothes were very threadbare. He 
always sat at the same table to the right of the counter. His 
cup of coffee was eked out by frequent supplements of water, 
and meanwhile he was always busy copying music — at least, 



182 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

so it seemed to us at first. We soon came to a different con- 
clusion, though, because every now and then he would put 
down his pen, lean back against the cushioned seat, look up 
at the ceiling and smile to himself — such a sweet smile ; the 
smile of a poet or an artist, seeking inspiration from the spir- 
its supposed to be hovering now and then about such. 

That man was no copyist, but an obscure, unappreciated 
genius, perhaps, biding his chance, hoping against hope, 
meanwhile living a life of jealously concealed dreams and 
hardship. For he looked sad enough at the best of times, 
with a kind of settled melancholy which apparently only one 
thing could dispel — the advent of a couple or trio of pifferari. 
Then his face would light up all of a sudden, he would gently 
push his music away, speak to them in Italian, asking them 
to play certain pieces, beating time with an air of content- 
ment which was absolutely touching to behold. On the other 
hand, the young pifferari appeared to treat him with greater 
deference than they did the other customers ; the little girl 
who accompanied them was particularly eager for his approval. 

In a little while we became very friendly with the old gen- 
tleman, and, one evening, he said, " If you will be here next 
Wednesday, the pifferari will give us something new." 

On the evening in question he looked quite smart ; he had 
evidently " fait des frais de toilette," as our neighbours have 
it ; he wore a different coat, and his big white neckcloth was 
somewhat more starched than usual. He seemed quite ex- 
cited. The pifferari, on the other baud, seemed anxious and 
subdued. The cafe was very full, for all the habitues liked 
the old gentleman, and had made it a point of respond- 
ing to his quasi-invitation. They were well rewarded, for I 
have rarely heard sweeter music. It was unlike anything we 
were accustomed to hear from such musicians; there was an 
old-world sound about it that went straight to the heart, and 
when we looked at the old gentleman amidst the genuine ap- 
plause after the termination of the first piece, there were two 
big tears coursing down his wrinkled cheeks. 

The pifferari came again and again, and though they 
never appealed to him directly, we instinctively guessed that 
there existed some connection between them. All our efforts 
to get at the truth of the matter were, however, in vain, for 
the old gentleman was very reticent. 

Meanwhile my young friend had passed his examinations, 
and shifted his quarters to my side of the river. He did not 



THE QUARTIER-LATIX REVISITED. 183 

abandon the Quartier-Latin altogether, but my inquiries 
about the old musician met with no satisfactory response. 
He had disappeared. Nearly two years went by, when, one 
afternoon, he called. "Come with me," he said; "I am 
going to show you a curious nook of Paris which you do not 
know, and take you to an old acquaintance whom you will be 
pleased to see again." 

The " curious nook " of Paris still exists to a certain ex- 
tent, only the pilierari have disappeared from it. It is situ- 
ated behind the Pantheon, and is more original than its 
London counterpart — Saffron Hill. It is like a corner of old 
Rome, Florence, or Naples, without the glorious Italian sun 
shining above it to lend picturesqueness to the rags and tatters 
of its population ; swarthy desperadoes with golden rings in 
their ears and on their grimy fingers, their greasy, soft felt 
bats cocked jauntily on their heads, or drawn over the flash- 
ing dark eyes, before which their womankind cower and shake ; 
old men who but for the stubble on their chins would look 
like ancient cameos ; girls with shapely limbs and handsome 
faces ; middle-aged women who remind one of the witches in 
Macbeth ; women younger still, who have neither shape nor 
make ; urchins and little lassies who remind one of the pict- 
ures of Murillo ; in short, a population of wood-carvers and 
modellers, vendors of plaster casts, i;rtist-models, sugar-bakers 
and mosaic- workers, living in the streets the greater part of 
the day, retiring to their wretched attics at night, sober and 
peaceful generally, but desperate and unmanageable when in 
their cups. 

The cab stopped before a six-storied house which had seen 
better days, in a dark, narrow street, into which the light of 
day scarcely penetrated. The moment we alighted w^e heard 
a charivari of string instruments and voices, and as we 
ascended the steep, slimy, rickety staircase the sound grew 
more distinct. When we reached the topmost landing, my 
friend knocked at one of the three or four doors, and, without 
waiting for an answer, we entered. It was a scantily furnished 
room with a bare brick floor, an old bedstead in one corner, 
a few rush-bottomed chairs, and a deal table ; but every- 
thing was scrupulously clean. Behind the table, a cotton 
nightcap on his head, his tall thin frame wrapt in an old 
overcoat, stood our old friend, the composer; in front, half a 
dozen urchins, in costumes vaguely resembling those of the 
Calabrian peasantry, grimy like coalheavers, their black hair 



ISl AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

standing on end with attention, were rehearsing a new piece 
of music. Then I understood it all. He was the professor 
of pifferari, an artist for all that, an unappreciated genius, 
perhaps, who, rather than not be heard at all, introduced a 
composition of his own into their hackneyed programme, and 
tasted the sweets of popularity, without the accompanying 
rewards which, nowadays, popularity invariably brings. This 
one had known Paisiello and Rossini, had been in the thick 
of the excitement on the first night of the " Barbiere," and 
had dreamt of similar triumphs. Perhaps his genius was as 
much entitled to them as that of the others, but he had 
loved not wisely, but too well, and when he awoke from the 
love-dream, he was too ruined in body and mind to be able 
to work for the realization of the artistic one. He would 
accept no aid Three years later, we carried him to his 
grave A simple stone marks the place in the cemetery of 
Montparnasse. 



LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY. 185 



CHAPTER IX. 

Louis-Philippe and his family — An unpublished theatrical skit on his mania 
for shaking hands with every one — His art of governing, according to the 
same skit^ — Louis-Philippe not the ardent admirer of the bourgeoisie he 
professed to be — The Faubourg Saint-Germain deserts the Tuileries — The 

English in too great a majority — Lord 's opinion of the dinners at the 

Tuileries — The attitude of the bourgeoisie towards Louis-Philippe, accord- 
ing to the King himself— Louis-Philippe\s wit — His final words on the 
death of Talleyrand — His love of money — He could be generous at times— 
A story of the Palais-Royal — Louis-Philippe and the Marseillaise — Two 
curious stories connected with the Mai-seillaisc — Wlio was the composer of 
it? — Louis- Philippe's opinion of the throne, the crown, and the sceptre of 
France as additions to one's comfort — His children, and especially his sons, 
take things more easily — Even the Bonapartists admired some o^ the latter 
— A mot of an Imperialist — How the boys were brought up— Their noctur- 
nal rambles later on — The King himself does not seem to mind those esca- 
pades, but is frightened at M. Guizot hearing of them — Louis-Philippe did 
not understand Guizot — The recollection of his former misery frequently 
haunts the King — He worries Queen Victoria with his fear of becoming 
poor — Louis- Philippe an excellent husband and father — He wants to write 
the libretto of an opera on an English subject — His religion— The court 
receptions ridiculous— Even the proletariat sneer at them — The entree of 
the Duchesse d'Orleans into Paris — The scene in the Tuileries gardens — A 
mot of Princesse Clementine on her fathers too paternal solicitude — A 
practical joke of the Prince de Joinville — His caricatures and drawings — 
The chilclren inherited their talent for drawing and modelling from their 
mother — The Due de Nemours as a miniature and water-colour painter — 
Suspected of being a Legitimist— All Louis-Philippe's children great pa- 
trons of art— How the bourgeoisie looked upon their intercoui^se with artists 
— The Due de Nemours' marvellous memory — The studio of Eugene Lami 
— His neighbours, Paul Delaroche and Honore de Balzac — The Due de 
Nemours' "bravery called in question — The Due d'Aumale's exploits in 
Algeria considered mere skirmishes — A curious story of spiritism — The Due 
d'Aumale a greater favourite with the world than any of the other sons of 
Louis-Philippe — His wit — The Due d'Orleans also a great favourite^His 
visits to Decamps' studio — An indifferent classical scholar — A curious kind 
of black-mail — His indifference to money — There is no money in a Repub- 
lic—His death — A witty reply to the Legitimists. 

As will ap23ear by-and-by, I was an eye-witness of a good 
many incidents of the Revolution of '48, and a great many 
more have been related to me by friends, whose veracity was 
and still is beyond suspicion. Neither they nor I have ever 
been able to establish a sufficiently valid political cause for 



186 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

that uphoaval. Perhaps it was because we were free from 
the prejudices engendered by what, for Avant of a better term, 
1 must call •' dynastic sentiment." We were not blind to 
the faults of Louis-Philippe, but we refused to look at them 
through the spectacles supplied in turns by the Legitimists, 
the Imperialists, and Republicans. How far these spectacles 
were calculated to improve people's yision, the following 
specimen Avill show. 

I have lying before me a few sheets of quarto paper, 
sewn together in a primitive way. It is a manuscript skit, 
in the form of a theatrical duologue, professing to deal with 
the king's well-known habit of shaking hands with every one 
with whom he came in contact. The dramatis personce are 
King Fip L, Roi des Epiciers-read, King of the Philistines 
or Shopkeepers, and his son and heir, Grand Poulot (Big 
Spooney). The monarch is giving the heir-apparent a lesson 
in the art of governing. "Do not be misled," he says, " by 
a parcel of theorists, who will tell you that the citizen-mon- 
archy is based upon the sovereign will of the people, or upon 
the strict observance of the Charter ; this is merely so much 
drivel from the political Rights or Lefts. In reality, it does 
not signify a jot whether France be free at home and feared 
and respected abroad, whether the throne be hedged round 
with republican institutions or supported by an hereditary 
peerage, whether the language of her statesmen be weighty 
and the deeds of her soldiers heroic. The citizen-monarchy 
and the art of governing consist of but one thing — the 
capacity of the principal ruler for shaking hands with any 
and every ragamuffin and out-of-elbows brute he meets." 
Thereupon King Fip shows his son how to shake hands in 
every conceivable position — on foot, on horseback, at a gallop, 
at a"^ trot, leaning out of a carriage, and so forth. Grand 
Poulot is not only eager to learn, but ambitious to improve 
upon his sire's method. " How would it do, dad," he asks, 
" if, in addition to shaking hands with them, one inquired 
after their health, in the second person singular — ' Comment 
vas tu, mon vieux cochon ? ' or, better still, ' Comment vas tu, 
mon vieux citoyen ? ' " " It would do admirably," says 
papa; "but it does not matter whether you say cochon or 
citoyen, the terms are synonymous." 

I am inclined to think that beneath this rather clever 
banter there was a certain measure of truth. Louis-Philippe 
was by no means the ardent admirer of the bourgeoisie he 



LOUIS-PHILIPPE'S COURT. 187 

professed to be. He did not foster any illusions with regard 
to their intellectual worth, and in his inmost heart he re- 
sented their so-called admiration of him, which he knew to 
be would-be patronage under another name. They had 
formed a hedge round him which prevented any attempt on 
his part at conciliating his own caste, the old noblesse. It is 
doubtful whether he would have been successful, especially 
in the earlier years of his reign ; but their ostracism of him 
and his family rankled in his mind, and found vent now and 
again in an epigram that stung the author as much as the 
party against which it was directed. " There is more diffi- 
culty in getting people to my court entertainments from 
across the Seine than from across the Channel," he said. 

The fact is, that the whole of the Faubourg St.-Germain 
was conspicuous by its absence from the Tuileries in those 
days, and that the English were in rather too great a 
majority. They were not always a distinguished com23any. 
I was little more than a lad at this time, but I remember 

Lord 's invariable answer when his friends asked him what 

the dinner had been like, and whether he had enjoyed him- 
self : " The dinner was like that at a good table-d'hote, and I 
enjoyed myself as I would enjoy myself at a good hotel in 
Switzerland or at Wiesbaden, where the proprietor knew me 
personally, and had given orders to the head waiter to look 
after my comforts. But," he added, " it is, after all, more 
pleasant dining there, when the English are present. At 
any rate, there is no want of respect. When the French sit 
round the table, it is not like a king dining with his sub- 
jects, but like half a hundred kings dining with one subject." 
Allowing for a certain amount of exaggeration, there was a 
good deal of truth in the remarks, as I found out afterwards. 
" The bourgeoisie in their attitude towards me," said Louis- 
Philippe, one day, to the English nobleman I have just 
quoted, " are always reminding me of Adalberon of Eheims 
with Hugues Capet : ' Qui t'as fait roi ? ' asked the bishop. 
' Qui t'as fait due ? ' retorted the king. I have made them 
dukes to a greater extent, though, than they have made me 
king." 

For Louis-Philippe was a witty king — wittier, perhaps, 
than any that had sat on the throne of France since Henri 
IV. Some of his mots have become historical, and even his 
most persistent detractors have been unable to convict him 
of plagiarism with regard to them. What he specially ex- 



188 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

celled in was the " mot de la fin " anglice — the clenching of 
an argument, such as, for instance, his final remark on the 
death of Talleyrand. He had paid him a visit the day be- 
fore. When the news of the prince's death was brought to 
him, he said, " Are you sure he is dead ? " 

" Very sure, sire," was the answer. " Why, did not your 
majesty himself notice yesterday that he was dying ? " 

" I did, but there is no judging from appearances with 
Talleyrand, and I have been asking myself for the last four 
and twenty hours what interest he could possibly have in 
departing at this particular moment." 

To those who knew Louis-Philippe personally, it was 
very patent that he disliked those who had been instrumental 
in setting him on the throne, and who, under the cloak of 
" liberty, fraternity, and equality," were seeking their own 
interest only, namely, the bourgeoisie. He knew their quasi- 
good will to him to be so much sheer hypocrisy, and perhaps 
he and they were too much alike in some respects, in their 
love of money for the sake of hoarding it. It was, perhaps, 
the only serious failing that could be laid to the charge of 
the family, because none of its members, with the exception 
of the Due d'Orleans, were entirely free from it. It must 
not be inferred, though, that Louis- Philippe kept his purse 
closed to really deserving cases of distress. Far from it. I 
have the following story from my old tutor, to whom I am, 
moreover, indebted for a great many notes, dealing with 
events of which I could not possibly have had any knowledge 
but for him. 

In 1829 the greater part of the Galerie d'Orleans in the 
Palais-Royal was completed. The unsightly wooden booths 
had been taken down, and the timber must have been decid- 
edly worth a small fortune. Several contractors made very 
handsome offers for it, but Louis-Philippe (then Due d'Or- ^' 
leans) refused to sell it. It was to be distributed among the 
poor of the neighbourhood for fuel for the ensuing winter, 
which threatened to be a severe one. One day, when the 
duke was inspecting the works in company of his steward, 
an individual, who was standing a couple of yards away, be- 
gan to shout at the top of his voice, " Vive Louis-Philippe ! " 
" Go and see what the fellow wants, for assuredly he wants 
something," said the duke, who was a Voltairean in his way, 
and had interpreted the man's enthusiasm aright. Papa 
Sournois was one of those nondescripts for whom even now 4| 



LOUIS-PHILIPPE AND THE MARSEILLAISE. 189 

there appear to be more resources in the French capital than 
elsewhere. At the period in question he mainly got his liv- 
ing by selling contre-marques (checks) at the doors of the 
theatre. He had heard of the duke's intention with regard 
to the wood, hence his enthusiastic cry of "Vive Louis- 
Philippe ! " A cartload of wood was sent to his place ; papa 
Sournois converted it into money, and got drunk with the 
proceeds for a fortnight. When the steward, horribly scan- 
dalized, told the duke of the results of his benevolence, the 
latter merely laughed, and sent for the wife, who made her 
appearance accompanied by a young brood of live. The 
duke gave her a five-franc piece, and told her to apply to 
the concierge of the Palais-Royal for a similar sum every 
day during the winter months. Of course, five francs a day 
was not as much as a drop of water out of the sea when we 
consider Louis-Philippe's stupendous income, and yet when 
the Tuileries were sacked in 1848, documents upon docu- 
ments were found, compiled with the sole view of saving a 
few francs per diem out of the young princes' " keep." 

" I am so sick of the word ' fraternity,' " said Prince 
Metternich, after his return from France, " that, if I had a 
brother, I should call him cousin." Though it was to the 
strains of the Marseillaise that Louis-Philippe had been con- 
ducted to the H6tel-de-Ville on the day when Lafayette 
pointed to him as " the best of all republics," a time came 
when Lou is- Philippe got utterly sick of the Marseillaise. 

But what was he to do, seeing that his attempt at intro- 
ducing a new national hymn had utterly failed ? The mob 
refused to sing " La Parisienne," composed by Casimir de 
la Vigne, after Alexandre Dumas had refused to write a na- 
tional hymn ; and they, moreover, insisted on the King 
joining in the chorus of the old hymn, as he had hitherto 
done on all public occasions.* They had grumblingly re- 
signed themselves to his beating time no longer, but any 
further refusal of his co-operation might have been resented 
in a less peaceful fashion. On the other hand, there was 



* When there was no public occasion, his political antasronists or merely 
practical jokers who knew of his dislike invented one, like Edouard d'Ourliac, 
a well-known .lournahst and the author of several novels, who, whenever he 
had nothing better to do, recruited a band of street arabs to go and sing the 
Marseillaise under the king's windows. They kept on singing until Louis- 
Philippe, in sheer self-delenee, was obliged to come out and join in the song. — 
Editor. 



190 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

the bourgeoisie who were of opinion that, now that the mon- 
a "chy had entered upon a more conservative period, the in- 
10 ling of the hymn, at any rate on the sovereign's part, was 

it of place, and savoured too much of a republican mani- 
festation " It was Guizot who told him so," said Lord , 

who had been standing on the balcony of the Tuileries on 
the occasion of the king's " saint's day," * and had heard the 
minister make the remark. 

" And what did the king reply ? " was the question. 

"Do not worry yourself, monsieur le ministre ; I am only 
moving my lips ; I have ceased to pronounce the words for 
many a day." 

These were the expedients to which Louis-Philippe was 
reduced before he had been on the throne half a dozen years. 
" I am like the fool between two stools," observed the king 
in English, afterwards, when speaking to Lord , " only 

1 happen to be between the comfortably stuffed easy-chair of 
the bourgeois drawing room and the piece of furniture 
seated on which Louis XIV. is said to have received the 
Dutch ambassadors." 

While speaking of the Marseillaise, here are two stories 
in connection with it which are not known to the general 
reader. The first was told to me by the old tutor already 
mentioned ; the second aroused a great deal of literary curi- 
osity in the year 1860, and bears the stamp of truth on the 
face of it. It was, however, never fully investigated, or, at any 
rate, the results of the investigation were never published.! 

" We were all more or less aware," said my informant, 
" that Rouget de I'lsle was not the author of the whole of 
the words of the Marseillaise. But none of us in Lyons, 
where I was born, knew who had written the last strophe, 
commonly called the ' strophe of the children,' and I doubt 
whether they were any wiser in Paris. Some of my fellow- 
students — for I was nearly eighteen at that time — credited 
Andre Chenier with the authorship of the last strophe, oth- 
ers ascribed it to Louis-Fran9ois Dubois, the poet. J All this 
was, however, so much guess-work, when, one day during the 

* In France it is the Patron Saint's day, not the birthday, that is kept. 

+ I have inserted them here in order not to fall into repetitions on the same 
subject. — Editor. 

X Louis-Frangois Dubois, the author of several heroic poems, " Ankarstrom," 
" Genevieve et Siegfried," etc., which are utterly for.crotten. His main title to 
the recollection of posterity consists in his having saved, during the Revolution, 



A STORY OF THE MARSEILLAISE. 191 

Keign of Terror, the report spread that a ci-devant priest, 
or rather a priest who had refused to take the oath to the 
Kepublic, had been caught solemnizing a reHgious marriage, 
and that he was to be brought before the Revokitionary Tri- 
bunal that same afternoon. Though you may not think so, 
merely going by what you have read, the appearance of a 
priest"^ before the Tribunal always aroused more than com- 
mon interest, nor have you any idea what more than com- 
mon interest meant in those days. A priest to the Revo- 
lutionaries and to the Terrorists, they might hector and 
bully as they liked, was not an ordinary being. They looked 
upon him either as something better than a man or worse 
than a devil. They had thrown the religious compass they 
had brought from home with them overboard, and they had 
not the philosophical one to take its place. You may work 
out the thing for yourself ; at any rate, the place was 
crammed to suffocation when we arrived at the Hotel de 
Yille. It was a large room, at the upper end of which stood 
an oblong table, covered with a black cloth. Seated around 
it were seven self-constituted judges. Besides their tricolour 
scarfs round their waists, they wore, suspended by a ribbon 
from their necks, a small silver axe. 

" As a rule there was very little speechifying. * La mort 
sans phrase,' which had become the fashion since Louis XVI.'s 
execution, was strictly adhered to. Half a dozen prisoners 
were brought in and taken away without arousing the slight- 
est excitement, either in the way of commiseration or hatred. 
After having listened, the judges either extended their hands 
on the table or put them to their foreheads. The first move- 
ment meant acquittal and liberation, the second death ; not 
always by the guillotine though, for the instrument w^as not 
perfect as yet, and did not work sufficiently quickly to please 
them. All at once the priest Avas brought in, and a dead si- 
lence prevailed. He was not a very old man, though his hair 
was snow-white. 

" ' Who art thou ? ' asked the president. 

" The prisoner drew himself up to his full height. ' I 
am the Abbe Pessoneaux, a former tutor at the college at 
Vienne, and the author of the last strophe of the Marseillaise,' 
he said quietly. 

a CTeat many literary works of value, which he returned to the State afterwards. 
—Editor. 



192 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

" I cannot convey to you the impression produced by those 
simple words. The silence became positively oppressive ; you 
could hear the people breathe. The president did not say 
another word ; the priest's reply had apparently stunned him 
also : he merely turned round to his fellow-judges. Soldiers 
and gaolers stood as if turned into stone ; every eye was di- 
rected towards the table, watching for the movement of the 
judges' hands. Slowly and deliberately they stretched them 
forth, and then a deafening cheer rang through the room. 
The Abbe Pessoneaux owed his life to his strophe, for, 
though his story was not questioned then, it was proved true 
in every particular. On their way to Paris to be present at 
the taking of the Tuileries on the 10th of August, the Mar- 
seillais had stopped at Vienne to celebrate the Fete of the 
Federation. On the eve of their arrival the Abbe Pessoneaux 
had composed the strophe, and but for his seizure the author- 
ship would have always remained a matter of conjecture, for 
Eouget de I'lsle would have never had the honesty to ac- 
knowledge it." 

My tutor was right, and I owe him this tardy apology ; it 
appears that, after all, Rouget de I'lsle had not the honesty to 
acknowledge openly his indebtedness to those who made his 
name immortal, and that his share in the Marseillaise amounts 
to the first six strophes. He did not write a single note of 
the music. The latter was composed by Alexandre Boucher, 
the celebrated violinist, in 1790, in the drawing-room of Ma- 
dame de Mortaigne, at the request of a colonel whom the 
musician had never met before, whom he never saw again. 
The soldier was starting next morning with his regiment for 
Marseilles, and pressed Boucher to write him a march there 
and then. Rouget de I'lsle, an officer of engineers, having 
been imprisoned in 1791, for having refused to take a second 
oath to the Constitution, heard the march from his cell, and, 
at the instance of his gaoler, adapted the words of a patriotic 
hymn he was then writing to it. 

One may fancy the surprise of Alexandre Boucher, when 
he heard it sung everywhere and recognized it as his own 
composition, though it had been somewhat altered to suit the 
words. But the pith of the story is to come. I give it in 
the very words of Boucher himself, as he told it to a Paris 
journalist whom I knew well. 

"A good many years afterwards, I was seated next to 
Rouget de I'lsle at a dinner-party in Paris. We had never 



WHO WROTE THE MUSIC. 193 

met before, and, as you may easily imagine, I was rather in- 
terested in the gentleman, whom, with many others at the 
same board, I complimented on his production ; only 1 con- 
lined myself to complimenting him on his poem. 

" ' You don't say a word about the music,' he replied ; * and 
yet, being a celebrated musician, that ought to interest you. 
Do not you like it?' 

" ' Very much indeed,' I said, in a somewhat significant 
tone. 

" ' Well, let me be frank with you. The music is not 
mine. It was that of a march which came. Heaven knows 
whence, and which they kept on playing at Marseilles during 
the Terror, when I was a prisoner at the fortress of St. Jean. 
I made a few alterations necessitated by the words, and there 
it is.' 

" Thereupon, to his great surprise, I hummed the march 
as I had originally written it. 

" ' Wonderful ! ' he exclaimed ; ' how did you come by it ? ' 
he asked. 

" When I told him, he threw himself round my neck. But 
the next moment he said — 

" ' I am very sorry, my dear Boucher, but I am afraid that 
you will be despoiled for ever, do what you will ; for your 
music and my words go so well together, that they seem to 
have sprung simultaneously from the same brain, and the 
world, even if I proclaimed my indebtedness to you, would 
never believe it.' 

" ' Keep the loan,' I said, moved, in spite of myself, by his 
candour. ' Without your genius, my march would be forgot- 
ten by now. You have given it a patent of nobility. It is 
yours for ever.' " 

I return to Louis- Philippe, who, at the time of my tutor's 
story, and for some years afterwards, I only knew from the 
reports that were brought home to us. Of course, I saw him 
several times at a distance, at reviews, and on popular holi- 
days, and I was surprised that a king of whom every one 
spoke so well in private, who seemed to have so much cause 
for joy and happiness in his own family, should look so care- 
worn and depressed in public. For, young as I was, I did 
not fail to see that, beneath the calm and smiling exterior, 
there was a great deal of hidden grief. But I was too young 
to understand the deep irony of his reply to one of my rela- 
tives, a few months before his accession to the throne : " The 
14 



194 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

crown of France is too cold in winter, too warm in summer ; 
the sceptre is too blunt as a weapon of defence or attack, it 
is too short as a stick to lean upon : a good felt hat and a 
strong umbrella are at all times more useful?' Above all, I 
was too young to understand the temper of the French where 
their rulers were concerned, and though, at the time of my 
writing these notes, I have lived for fifty years amongst them, 
I doubt whether I could give a succinct psychological ac- 
count of their mental attitude towards their succeeding re- 
gimes, except by borrowing the words of one of their cleverest 
country-women, Madame Emile de Girardin : " When Mar- 
shal Soult is in the Opposition, he is acknowledged to have 
won the battle of Toulouse ; when he belongs to the Govern- 
ment, he is accused of having lost it." Since then the Ameri- 
cans have coined a word for that state of mind — " cussed- 
ness." 

Louis-Philippe's children, and especially his sons, some of 
whom I knew personally before I had my first invitation to 
the Tuileries, seemed to take matters more cheerfully. Save 
the partisans of t]ie elder branch, no one had a word to say 
against them. On the contrary, even the Bonapartists ad- 
mired their manly and straightforward bearing. I remember 
being at Tortoni's one afternoon when the Due d'Orleans and 
his brother, the Due de Nemours, rode by. Two of my 
neighbours, unmistakable Imperialists, and old soldiers by 
their looks, stared very hard at them ; then one said, " Si le 
petit au lieu de filer le parfait amour partout, avait mis tons 
ses oeufs dans le meme panier, il aurait eu des grands comme 
cela et nous ne serious pas dans I'impasse oii nous sommes." 

" Mon cher," replied the other, " des grands comme cela 
ne se font qu'a loisir, pas entre deux campagnes." * 

The admiration of these two veterans was perfectly justi- 
fied : they were very handsome young men, the sons of Louis- 
Philippe, and notably the two elder ones, though the Due 
d'Orleans was somewhat more delicate-looking than his 
brother, De Nemours. The boys had all been brought up 
very sensibly, perhaps somewhat too strict for their position. 
They all went to a public school, to the College Henri IV., 

* It reminds one of the answer of the younsrer Dumas to a crentleman whose 
wife liacl been notorious for her conjujjal taithlessness, and whose sons were all 
weaklings. " Ah, Monsieur Dumas, c'est un fils conmie vous qu'il me fallait," 
he exclaimed. '' Mon cher monsieur," came the reply, " quand on veut avoir 
un fils comme moi, il faut le faire soi-meme." — Editor. 



LOUIS-PHILIPPE'S DREAD OF POVERTY. I95 

and 1 remember well, about the year '38, when I had occasion 
of a morning to cross the Pont-A^euf, where there were still 
stalls and all sorts of booths, seeing the blue-and-yellow car- 
riage with the royal livery. It contained the Dues d'Aumale 
and de Montpensier, who had not finished their studies at 
that time. 

But though strictly brought up, they were by no means 
milksops, and what, for want of a better term, I may call 
" mother's babies : " quite the reverse. It was never known 
how they managed it, but at night, when they were supposed 
to be at home, if not in bed, they were to be"^ met with at all 
kinds of public places, notably at the smaller theatres, such 
as the Vaudeville, the Yarietes, and the Palais-Eoyal, one of 
which, at any rate, was a goodly distance from the Tuileries. 
It was always understood that the King knew nothing about 
these little escapades, but I am inclined to doubt this : I fancy 

he connived at them ; because, when Lord told him 

casually one day that he had met his sons the night before, 
Louis-Philippe seemed not in the least surprised, he only 
anxiously asked, " Where?" 

" At the Cafe de Paris, your majesty." 

The king seemed relieved. " That's all right," he said, 
laughing. " As long as they do not go into places where they 
are likely to meet with Guizot, I don't mind ; for if he saw 
them out in the evening, it might cost me my throne. Gui- 
zot is so terribly respectable. I am afraid there is a mistake 
either about his nationality or about his respectability ; they 
are badly matched." 

The fact is, that though Louis-Philippe admired and re- 
spected Guizot, he failed to understand him. To the most 
respectable of modern kings^ — not even Charles I. and William 
III. excepted — if by respectability we mean an unblemished 
private life — Guizot's respectability was an enigma. The man 
who, in spite of his advice to others, " Enrichissez vous, en- 
richissez vous," was as poor at the end of his ministerial 
career as at the beginning, must have necessarily been a puz- 
zle to a sovereign who, Avith a civil list of £750,000, Avas 
haunted by the fear of poverty, and haunted to such a degree 
as to harass his friends and counsellors with his apprehen- 
sions. " My dear minister," he said one day to Guizot, after 
he had recited a long list of his domestic charges — " My dear 
minister, I am telling you that my children will be wanting 
for bread." The recollection of his former misery uprose too 



190 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

frequently before him like a horrible nightmare, and made 
him the first bourgeois instead of the first gentilhonime of 
tlie kingdom, as his predecessors had been. When a trades- 
num drops a shilling and does not stoop to pick it up, his 
neglect becomes almost cul})able improvidence ; when a prince 
drops' a sovereign and looks for it, the deed may be justly 
qualified as mean. The leit})iotif oi Louis-Philippe's conver- 
sation, witty and charming as it w^as, partook of the avari- 
cious spirit of a Thomas Guy and a John Overs rather than 
of that of the great adventurer John Law. The chinking of 
the money-bags is audible through both, but in the one case 
the orchestration is strident, disagreeable, depressing ; in the 
other, it is generous, overfiowing with noble impulses, and 
cheering. I recollect that during my stay at Treport and 
Eu, in 1843, when Queen Victoria paid her visit to Louis- 

IMiilippe, the following story was told to me. Lord and 

I were quartered in a little hostelry on the Place du Chateau. 

One morning Lord came home laughing till he could 

laugh no longer. " What do you think the King has done 
now ? " he asked. I professed my inability to guess. •' About 
an hour ago, he and Queen Victoria were walking in the gar- 
den, when, with true French politeness, he olfered her a 
peach. The Queen seemed rather embarrassed how to skin 
it, when Louis- Philippe took a large clasp-knife from his 
pocket. ' When a man has been a poor devil like myself, 
obliged to live upon forty sous a day, he always carries a 
knife. I might have dispensed with it for the last few years; 
still, I do not wish to lose the habit — one does not know what 
may happen,' he said. Of course, the tears stood in tlie Queen's 
eyes. He really ought to know better than to obtrude his 
money worries upon every one." 

I must confess that I was not as much surprised as my 
interlocutor, who, however, had known Louis-Philippe much 
longer than I. Not his worst enemies could have accused the 
son of Philippe Egalite of being a coward : the bulletins of 
Valmy, Jemmjippes, and Neerwinden would have proved the 
contrary. But the contempt of physical danger on the battle- 
field does not necessarily constitute heroism in the most ele- 
vated sense of the term, although the world in general fre- 
quently accepts it as such. A man can die but once, and the 
semi-positivism, semi-Voltaireanism of Louis-Philippe had 
undoubtedly steeled him against the fear of death. Ilis re- 
ligion, throughout life, was not even skin-deep; and when 



LOUIS-PIIILIPPF/S IIELIGION. I97 

he accepted tlie lust rites of the Chiircli on his deatli-bed, lie 
only did so in deference to his wife. " Ma femme, es-tu con- 
tente de nioi?" were his words the moment the priests were 
gone. 

Neverllieless, he was too good a hnsband to grieve his 
wife, who was dei})ly religious, by any needless display of 
unbelief, lie always endeavoured, as far as ])()ssible, to tind 
an excuse for staying away from chuivh. He, as well as the 
female members of his family, were very fond of music; 
and Adam, the composer, was frequently invited to come and 
play for them in the private apartments. In fact, after his 
abilication, he seriously intended to write, in conjunction 
with Scribe, the libretto of an opera on an English historical 
subject, the music of which should be composed by llalevy. 
The composer of " La Juive " aiul the author of " Les lluge- 
nots " came over once to consult with the King, whose death, 
a few months later, put an end to the scheme. 

On the occasion of Ailam's visits the ])rincesses worked 
at their embroidery, while the King often stood by the side 
of the performer. Just about that ])eriod the chamber organ 
was introduced, and, on the recommendation of Adam, one 
was ordered for the Tuileries. The tirst time Louis-Philippe 
heard it played he was delighted: " This will be a distinct 
gain to our rural congregations," he said. "There must be 
a great many people who, like myself, stay away from church 
on account of their objection to that horrible instrument, the 
serjKMit. Is it not so, my wife?" 

The ideal purpose of life, if ever he possessed it, had been 
crushed out of him — first, by his governess, Madame de Gen- 
lis; secondly, by the dire poverty he sultered during his ex- 
ile : and, notwithstanding all that has been said to the con- 
trary, France wanted at that moment an ideal ruler, not the 
rational father of a large family who looked upon his mon- 
archy as a suitable means of providing for them. Tie was an 
usurper without the daring, the grandeur, the lawlessness of 
the usurper. The lesson of Na])oleon L's method had been 
thrown away npon him, as the lesson of Napoleon lll.'s has 
been thrown away upon his grandson. When 1 said Francte, 
I made a mistake, — I should have said Paris; for since 17S9 
there was no longer a King ot France, there was oidy a King 
of Paris. Such a thing as a Manchester movement, as a 
IManchester school of politics, would have been and is still 
an impossibility in France. 



198 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

And, unfortunately, Paris, which had applauded the glo- 
rious 7nise-e}i-scene of the First Empire, which had even 
looked on approvingly at some of the pomp and state of 
Louis XVIII. and Charles X., jeered at Louis-Philippe and 
his court with its ridiculous gatherings of tailors, drapers, 
and bootmakers, " ces gardes nationaux d'un pays oii il n'y a 
plus rien de national a garder," and their pretentious spouses 
" qui," according to the Duchesse de la Tremoille, " ont plus 
de chemises que nos aieules avaient des robes." * She and 
the Princesse Bagration were the only female representa- 
tives of the Faubourg St. Germain who attended these gath- 
erings ; for the Countess Le Hon, of whom I may have occa- 
sion to speak again, and who was the only other woman at 
these receptions that could lay claim to any distinction, was 
by no means an aristocrat. And be it remembered that in 
those days ridicule had still tlie power to kill. 

Nor was the weapon wielded exclusively by the aris- 
tocracy ; the lower classes could be just as satirical against 
the new court element. I was in the Tuileries gardens on 
that first Sunday in June, 1837, when the Duchesse d'Orleans 
made her entree into Paris. The weather was magnificent, 
and the set scene — as distinguished from some of the prop- 
erties, to use a theatrical expression — in keeping with the 
weather. The crowd itself was a pleasure to look at, as it 
stood in serried masses behind the National Guards and the 
regular infantry lining the route of the procession from the 
Arc de Triomphe to the entrance of the Chateau. All at 
once an outrider passes, covered with dust, and the crowd 
presses forward to get a better view. A woman of the people, 
in her nice white cap, comes into somewhat violent contact 
with an elegantly dressed elderly lady, accompanied by her 
daughter. The woman, instead of apologizing, says aloud 
that she wishes to see the princess : " You will have the op- 
portunity of seeing her at court, mesdames," she adds. The 
elegant lady vouchsafes no reply, but turns to her daughter : 
" The good woman," says the latter, shrugging her shoul- 
ders, " is evidently not aware that she has got a much greater 

* She had unconsciously borrowed the words from the Duchesse de Coislin, 
who, under shnilar circumstances a few years before, said to Madame de Cha- 
teaubriand, " Cela sent la parvenue ; nous autres, femmes de la cour, nous 
n'avions que deux chemises ; on les renoiivelait quand elles ^taient usees ; nous 
^tions vetues de robes de sole et nous n'avions pas Tair de grisettes comme ces 
demoiselles de muintenant."— Editok. 



A PRACTICAL JOKE OF PRINCE DE JOIXVILLE. I99 

chance of going to that court than we have. She has only 
got to marry some grocer or other tradesman, and she will be 
considered a grande dame at once." Then the procession 
passes — first the National Guards on horseback, then the 
King and M. de Montalivet, followed by Princesse Helene, 
with her young husband riding by the side of the carriage. 
So far so good : the first three or four carriages were more 
or less handsome, but Heaven oave us from the rest, as well 
as from their occupants ! They positively looked like some 
of those wardrobe-dealers so admirably described by Bal- 
zac. 

When all is over, the woman of the people turns to the 
elegant lady : " I ask your pardon, madame ; it was really not 
worth while hurting you. If these are grandes dames, I pre- 
fer les petites whom I see in my neighbourhood, the Rue 
Notre-Dame de Lorette. Comme elles etaient attifees ! " — 
Anglice, " What a lot of frumps they looked ! " 

In fact, Louis- Philippe and his queen sinned most griev- 
ously by overlooking the craving of the Parisians for pomp 
and display. No one was better aware of this than his chil- 
dren, notably the Due d'Orleans, Princess Clementine,^ and 
the Due de Nemours. They called him familiarly " le pere." 
" II est trop pere," said the princess in private ; " il fait con- 
currence au Pere Eternel." She was a very clever girl — per- 
haps a great deal cleverer than any of her brothers, the Solon 
of the family, the Due de Nemours, included — but very fond 
of mischief and practical joking. She found her match, 
though, in her brother, the Prince de Joinville, the son of 
Louis-Philippe of whom France heard most and saw least, 
for he was a sailor. One day, his sister asked him to bring 
her a complete dress of a Red-Skin chieftain's wife. His 
absence was shorter than usual, and, a few days before his 
return, he told her in a letter that he had the" costume she 

* The mother of Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Cobursr, the present ruler of Bul- 
earia. She was a particuhxr favourite of Queen Victoria, and Louis-Philippe 
himself not only considered her the cleverest of his three daughters, but the 
most likely successor to his sister Adelaide, as his private adviser. That the 
estimate of her abilities was by no means exasforerated, subsequent events have 
proved. The last time I saw'the princess was at the garden partv at Sheen- 
House, on the occasion of the silver weddinsr of the Count and Countess de 
Paris. I did not remember her for the moment, for a score of vears had made 
a difference. I asked an Austrian attache who she was. The answer came 
pat, " Alexander IIl.'s nightmare, Francis- Joseph's bo^y, and Bismarck's sleep- 
mg draught ; one of the three clever women in Europe ; Bulgaria's mother."— 
Editor. 



200 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

wanted. " Here, Clementine, this is for yon," he said, at his 
arrival, putting a string of glass beads on the table. 

"Very pretty," said Clementine, "but you promised me 
a complete dress." 

" This is the complete dress. I never saw them wear any 
other." 

I did not see the Prince de Joinville very often, perhaps 
two or three times in all ; once on the occasion of his mar- 
riage with Princess Fran^oise de Bourbon, the daughter of 
Dom Pedro I. of Brazil, and sister of the present emperor, 
when the prince brought his young bride to Paris. He was 
a clever draughtsman and capital caricaturist; but if the 
first of these talents proved an unfailiug source of delight to 
his parents, the second frequently inspired them with terror, 
especially his father, who never knew which of his ministers 
might become the next butt for his third son's pencil I 
have seen innumerable sketches, ostensibly done to delight 
his young wife and brothers, which, had they been published, 
would have been much more telling against his father's pic- 
torial satirists than anything they produced against the sov- 
ereign. For in those days, whatever wisdom or caution they 
may have learnt afterwards, the sons of Louis- Philippe were 
by no means disposed to sit down tamely under the insults 
levelled at the head of their house. In fact, nearly the whole 
of Louis- Philippe's children had graphic talents of no mean 
order. The trait came to them from their mother, who was 
a very successful pupil of Angelica Kauifman. Princesse 
Marie, who died so young, executed a statue of Jeanne 
d'Arc, Avhich was considered by competent judges, not at all 
likely to be influenced by the fact of the artist's birth, a very 
creditable piece of work indeed. I never saw it, so I cannot 
say, but I have seen some miniatures by the Due de Nemours, 
which might fairly rank with performances by the best mas- 
ters of that art, short of genius. 

It is a curious, but nevertheless admitted fact that the 
world has never done justice to the second son of Louis- 
Philippe. He was not half as great a favourite with the 
Parisians as his elder brother, altliough in virtue of his re- 
markable likeness to Henri IV., whom the Parisians still 
worship — probably because he is dead, — he ought to have 
commanded their sympathies. This hike warm ness towards 
the Due de Nemours has generally been ascribed by the par- 
tisans of the Orleanist dynasty to his somewhat reticent dis- 



THE DUG DE NEMOUHS. 201 

position, which by many people was mistaken for liauteur. 
I rather fancy it was because he was suspected of being his 
father's adviser, and, what was worse, his father's adviser in 
a reactionary sense. He was accused of being an anti-par- 
liamentarian, and he never took the trouble to refute the 
charge, probably because he was too honest to tell a lie.* I 
met the Due de Kemours for the tirst time in the studio of 
a painter, Eugene Lami, just as I met his elder brother in 
that of Decamps. In fact, all these young princes were sin- 
cere admirers and patrons of art, and, if they had had their 
will, the soirees at the Tuileries would have been graced 
by the presence of artists more frequently than they were ; 
but, preposterous and scarcely credible as it may seem, the 
bourgeoisie looked upon this familiar intercourse of the 
king's sons Avitli artists, literary meD,and the like, as so mnch 
condescension, if not worse, of which they, the bourgeoisie, 
would not be guilty if they could help it. It behoves me, 
however, to be careful in this instance, for the English 
aristocracy at home was not much more liberal in those 
days. 

The first thing that struck one in the Due de Nemours 
was the vast extent of his general information and the mar- 
vellous power of memory. Eugene Lami had just returned 
from London, and, in the exercise of his profession, had 
come in contact with some members of the oldest families. 
The mere mention of the name sufficed as the introduction 
to the general and anecdotal history of such a family, and I 
doubt whether the best official at Herald's College could 
have dissected a pedigree as did the Due de Nemours. Eu- 
gene Lami was at that time engaged upon designing some 
new uniforms for the army, many of which disappeared only 
after the war of 1870. He lived in the Rue des Marais, the 
greater part of which was subsequently demolished to make 
room for the Boulevard de Magenta, and in the same house 
with two men whose names have become immortal, Honore 
de Balzac and Paul Delaroche. I have already spoken of 
both, but I did not mention the incident that led to tlie 

* There was a similar divertreuee ot dynastic opinion during the Second 
Empire between the sovereiiJfn and those placed very near him on the throne. 
Wiien Alphonse Daudet came to J*aris to make a name in literature, the Due 
dir Morny ottered him a position as secretary. "•Before I accept it, monsieur le 
due, 1 had better tell you that 1 am a Legitimist," replied the future novelist. 
" DoiiH let that trouble you," laughed De Morny ; '' so am 1 to a certain extent, 
and the Empress is even more of a Leif itimist than 1 am." — Editok. 



202 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

painter's acquaintance with the novelist, an incident so ut- 
terly fanciful that the boldest farce-writer would think twice 
before utilizing it in a play. It was told to me by Lami him- 
self. One morning, as he and Paul Delaroche were working, 
there was a knock at the door, and a stout individual, dressed 
in a kind of monastic garb, appeared on the threshold. Dela- 
roche remembered that he had met him on the staircase, but 
neither knew who he was, albeit that Balzac's fame was not 
altogether unknown to them. " Gentlemen," said the vis- 
itor, " I am Honore Balzac, a neighbour and a confrere to 
boot. My chattels are about to be seized, and I would ask 
you to save a remnant of my library." 

Of course, the request was granted. The books were 
stowed away behind the pictures ; and, after that, Balzac 
often dropped in to have a chat with them, but neither Dela- 
roche nor Lami, the latter least of all, ever conceived a sin- 
cere liking for the great novelist. Their characters were 
altogether dissimilar. I have seen a good many men whose 
names have become household words among the refined, the 
educated, and the art-loving all the world over ; I have seen 
them at the commencement, in the middle, and at the zenith 
of their career: I have seen none more indifferent to the 
material benefits of their art than Eugene Lami and Paul 
Delaroche, not even Eugene Delacroix and Decamps. Balzac 
was the very reverse. To make a fortune was the sole am- 
bition of his life. 

To return for a moment to Louis- Philippe's sons. I 
have said that the Due de Nemours was essentially the grand 
seigneur of the family ; truth compels me to add, however, 
that there was a certain want of pliability about him which 
his social inferiors could not have relished. It was Henri 
IV. minus the bonhomie, also perhaps minus that indiscrimi- 
nate galanterie which endeared Ravaillac's victim to all 
classes, even when he was no longer young. In the days of 
which I am treating just now, the Due de Nemours was very 
young. As for his courage, it was simply above suspicion ; 
albeif that it was called in question after the revolution of 
'48, to his father's intense sorrow. No after-dinner encomi- 
um was ever as absolutely true as that of Sir Robert Peel on 
the sons and daughters of the last King of France, when he 
described them as respectively brave and chaste. Neverthe- 
less, had the Due de Nemours and his brothers been a' thou- 
sand times as brave as they were, party spirit, than which 



THE DUG DE NEMOURS' BRAVERY. 203 

there is nothing more contemptible in France, would have 
found the opportunity of denying that bravery. 

If these notes are ever published, Englishmen will smile 
at what I am about to write now, unless their disgust takes 
another form of expression. The exj^loits of the Due d'Au- 
male in Algeria are quoted by independent military authori- 
ties as so many separate deeds of signal heroism. They 
belong to history, and not a single historian has endeavoured 
to impair their value. AMU it be believed that the Opposi- 
tion journals of those days spoke of them with ill-disguised 
contempt as mere skirmishes with a lot of semi-savages? 
And, during the Second Rej^ublic, many of these papers re- 
turned to tlie charge because the Due d'Aumale, being the 
constitutionally-minded son of a constitutionally-minded 
king, resigned the command of his army instead of bringing 
it to France to coerce a nation into retaining a ruler whom, 
ostensibly at least, she had voluntarily accepted, and whom, 
therefore, she Avas as free to reject. 

In connection with these Algerian campaigns of the Due 
d'x^umale, I had a story told to me by his brother, De Mont- 
pensier, which becomes particularly interesting nowadays, 
when spiritualism or spiritism is so much discussed. He had 
it from two unimpeachable sources, namely, from his brother 
D'Aumale and from General Cousin-Montauban, afterwards 
Comte de Palikao, the same who was so terribly afraid, after 
the expedition in China, that the emperor would create him 
Comte de Pekin, and who sent an aide-de-camp in advance 
to beg the sovereign not to do so.* 

It was to General Montauban that Abdel-Kader surren- 
dered after the battles of Isly and Djemma-Gazhouat. It 
was in the latter engagement that a Captain de Gereaux fell, 
and when the news of his death reached his family they 
seemed almost 23repared for it. It transpired that, on the 
very day of the engagement, and at the very hour in which 
Captain de Gereaux was struck down, his sister, a young and 
handsome but very impressionable girl, started all of a sudden 
from her chair, exclaiming that she had seen her brother, 
surrounded by Arabs, who were felling him to the ground. 
Then she dropped to the floor in a dead swoon. 

A few years elapsed, when General Montauban, who had 

* In order to understand this dread on Montauban's part, the Encrlisli reader 
should be told that the term p^l'i?i is the contemptuous nickname for the civil- 
ian, with the French soldier.— Editor. 



204 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

become the military Governor of the province of Oran, re- 
ceived a letter from the De Gereaux family, requesting him 
to make some further inquiries respectiug the particulars of 
the captain's death. The letter was written at the urgent 
prayer of Mdlle. de Gereaux, who had never ceased to think 
and speak of her brother, and who, on one occasion, a month 
or so before the despatch of the petition, had risen again 
from her chair, though in a more composed manner than 
before, insisting that she had once more seen her brother. 
This time he was dressed in the native garb, he seemed very 
poor, and was delving the soil. These visions recurred at 
frequent intervals, to the intense distress of the family,^ who 
could not but ascribe them to the overstrung imagination of 
Mdlle. de Gereaux. A little while after, she maintained 
having seen her brother in a white robe and turban, and in- 
toning hymns that sounded to her like Arabic. She implored 
her parents to institute inquiries, and General Montauban 
was communicated with to that effect. He did all he could ; 
the country was at peace, and, after a few months, tidings 
came that there was a Frenchman held prisoner in one of 
the villages on the Morocco frontier, who for the last two or 
three years had entirely lost his reason, but that, previous to 
that calamity, he had been converted to Islamism. His 
mental derangement being altogether harmless, he was an 
attendant at the Mosque. As a matter of course, the infor- 
mation had been greatly embellished in having passed through 
so many channels, nor was it of so definite a character as I 
have noted it down, but that was the gist of it. 

Meanwhile, Montauban had been transferred to another 
command, and for a twelvemonth after his successor's arrival 
the inquiry was allowed to fall in abe3^ance. When it was 
finally resumed, the French prisoner had died, but, from a 
document written in his native language found upon him and 
brought to Oran, there remained little doubt that he was 
Captain de Gereaux. 

To return for a moment to the Due d'Aumale, who, curi- 
ously enough, exercised a greater influence on the outside 
world in general than any of his other brethren — an influence 
due probably to his enormous wealth rather than to his per- 
sonal qualities, though the latter may, to some people, have 
seemed remarkable. I met him but seldom during his 
father's lifetime. He was the beau-ideal of the preux cheva- 
lier, according to the French notion of the modern Bayard 



THE DUG D'ORLEANS. 205 

— that is, handsome, brave to a fault, irresistibly fascinating 
with women, good-natured in his way, and, above all, very 
witty. It was he who, after the confiscation of the d'Orleans' 
property by Napoleon III., replied to the French Ambassador 
at Turin, who inquired after his health,"! am all right; 
health is one of the things that cannot be confiscated." 
Nevertheless, upon closer acquaintance, I failed to see the 
justifying cause for the preference manifested by public 
opinion, and, upon more minute inquiry, I found that a 
great many people shared my views. I am at this moment 
convinced that, but for his having been the heir of that ill- 
fated Prince de Conde, and consequently the real defender 
in the various suits resulting from the assassination of that 
prince by Madame de Feucheres, he would have been in no 
way distinguished socially from the rest of the D'Orleans. 

The popularity of his eldest brother, the Due d'Orleans, 
was, on the contrary, due directly to the man himself. As 
far as one can judge of him, he was the reverse of Charles II., 
in that he never said a wise thing and never did a foolish 
one. He was probably not half so clever as his father, nor, 
brave as he may have been, would he have ever made so dash- 
ing a soldier as his brother D'Aumale, or so rollicking a sailor 
as his brother De Joinville. He did not pretend to the wis- 
dom of his brother De Nemours, nor to the mystic tendencies 
of his youngest sister, nor to the sprightly wit of Princesse 
Clementine, and 3'et withal he understood the French nation 
better than any of them. Even his prenuptial escapades, se- 
crets to no one, were those of the grand seigneur, though by 
no means affichees ; they endeared him to the majority of the 
people. " Chacun colon-ise a sa fa9on," was the lenient ver- 
dict on his admiration for Jenny Colon, at a moment when 
colonization in Algeria was the topic of the day. On the 
whole he liked artists better, perhaps, than art itself, yet it 
did not prevent him from buying masterpieces as far as his 
means would allow him. Though still young, in the latter 
end of the thirties, I was already a frequent visitor to the 
studios of the great French painters, and it was in that of 
Decamps' that I became alive to his character for the first 
time. I was talking to the great painter when the duke came 
in. We had met before, and shook hands, as he had been 
taught to do by his father when he met with an Englishman. 
But I could not make out why he was carrying a pair of trou- 
sers over his arm. After we had been chatting for about ten 



206 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

minutes, I wondering all the while what he was going to do 
with the nether garment, he caught one of my side glances, 
and burst out laughing. " I forgot," he said ; " here, Decamps, 
here are your breeches." Then he turned to me to explain. 
'' 1 always bring them up with me when I come in the morn- 
ing. The concierge is very old, and it saves her trudging up 
four flights of stairs." The fact was, that the concierge, be- 
fore she knew who he was, had once asked him to take up 
the painter's clothes and boots. From that day forth he 
never failed to ask for them when passing her lodge. 

I can but repeat, the Due d'Orleans was one of the most 
charming men I have known. I always couple him in my 
mind with Benjamin Disraeli, and Alexandre Dumas the 
elder. I knew the English statesman almost as well during 
part of my life as the French novelist. Though intellectu- 
ally wide apart from them, the duke had one, if not two traits 
in common with both ; his utter contempt for money aifairs 
and the personal charm he wielded. I doubt whether this 
personal charm in the other tw^o men was due to their intel- 
lectual attainments ; with the Due d'Orleans it was certainly 
not the case. He rarely, if ever, said anything worth remem- 
bering; in fact, he frankly acknowledged his very modest 
scholarship, and his inability either to remember the epi- 
grams of others or to condense his thoughts into one of his 
own. " I should not like to admit as much to my father, 
who, it appears, is a very fine Greek and Latin scholar," he 
said — " that is, if I am to believe my brothers, De Nemours 
and D'Aumale, who ought to know ; for, notwithstanding the 
prizes they took at college, I believe they are very clever. Ah, 
you may well look surprised at my saying, 'notwithstanding 
the prizes they took,' because I took ever so many, although, 
for the life of me, I could not construe a Greek sentence, and 
scarcely a Latin one. I have paid very handsomely, however, 
for my ignorance." And then he told us an amusing story 
of his having had to invent a secretaryship to the duchess for 
an old schoolfellow. " You see, he came upon me unawares 
with a slip of paper I had written him while at college, ask- 
ing him to explain to me a Greek passage. There was no 
denying it, I had signed it. What is w^orse still, he is sup- 
posed to translate and to reply to the duchess's German cor- 
respondence, and, when I gave him the appointment, he did 
not know a single w^ord of Schiller's language, so I had to pay 
a German tutor and him too." 



HIS INDIFFERENX'E WITH REGARD TO MONEY. 207 

I have said that the Due d'Orleanswas absolutely indiifer- 
ent with regard to money, but he would not be fleeced with 
impunity. What he disliked more than anything else, was 
the greed of the shop-keeping bourgeois. One day, while 
travelling in Lorraine, he stopped at the posting-house to 
have his breakfast, consisting of a couple of eggs, a few 
slices of bread and butter, and a cup of coffee. Just before 
proceeding on his journey, his valet came to tell him that 
mine host wanted to charge him two hundred francs for the 
repast. The duke merely sent for the mayor, handed him a 
thousand-franc note, gave him the particulars of his bill of 
fare, told him to pay the landlord according to the tariff, and 
to distribute the remainder of the money among the poor. 
It is more than probable that mine host was among the first, 
in '48, to hail the republic: princes and kings, according to 
him, were made to be fleeced ; if they objected, what was the 
good of having a monarchy? 

The popular idol in France must distribute largesse, and 
distribute it individually, or be profitable in some other way. 
Greed, personal interest, underlies most of the political strife 
in France. During one of the riots, so common in the reign 
of Louis-Philippe, Mimi-Lepreuil, a well-known clever pick- 
pocket, w^as shouting with all his might, " Vive Louis- 
Philippe ! a bas la Republique ! " As a rule, gentlemen of his 
profession are found on the plebeian side, and one of the 
superintendents of police on duty, who had closely watched 
him, inquired into the reason of his apostasy. " I am sick of 
your Eepublicans," was the answer. " I come here morning 
after morning " — it happened on the Place de la Bourse, — 
" and dip my hands into a score of pockets without finding a 
red cent. During the Revolution of July, at the funeral of 
General Lamarque, I did not make my expenses. Give me a 
ro3'al procession to make money." These were his politics. 

It would be difficult to say what the Due d'Orleans would 
have done, had he lived to ascend the throne. One thing is 
certain, however, that on the day of his death, genuine tears 
stood in the eyes of all classes, except the Legitimists. As I 
have already said, they ascribed the fatal accident to God's 
vengeance for the usurpation of his father. " If this be the 
case," said an irreverent but witty journalist, " it argues but 
very little providence on the part of your Providence^ iov 
now He will have to keep the peace between the DucdeBerri, 
the Due de Reichstadt, and the Due d'Orleans.*' 



208 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 



CHAPTER X. 

The Revolution of '48— The beginning of it— The National Guards in all their 
glory— Tlie Caf^ Gregoire on the Place du Caire — The price of a good 
breakfast in '48 — The pahny days of tlie Cuisine Bourgeoise — The excite- 
ment on the Boulevards on Sunday, February 20th, '48 — The theatres — A 
ball at Poirson's, the erstwhile director of the Gynnaase — A lull in the 
storm— Tuesday, February 2'2nd — Another visit to 'the Cafe Grcgoire — On 
my way thither — The Coinedie-Frangaise closes its doors — What it means, 
according to my old tutor — We are waited upon by a sergeant and corporal 
— We are no longer "messieurs," but "citoyens" — An eye to the main 
chance— The patriots do a bit of business in tricolour cockades— The com- 
pany marches away — Casualties — " Lc patriotisme " means the ditlerence 
between the louis d'or and the ecu of three francs — Tlic company bivouacs 
on the Boulevard Saint-Martin — A tyrant's victim " malqve luV — Wednes- 
day, February 2:3rd — The Cafe Gregoire once more — Tlie National Guards 
en neglige — A novel mode of settling accounts — The National Guards for- 
tify the inner man — A bivouac on the Boulevard du Temple — A camp 
scene from an opera— I leave — My companion's account — The National 
Guards protect the regulars — The author of these notes goes to the theatre 
— The Gymnase and the Varietes on the eve of the Revolution — Boutie and 
Dejazet— Thursday, February 24th, '48— The Boulevards at 9.30 a. m.— No 
milk — The Revolutionaries do without it — The Place du Carrousel — The 
sovereign people fire from the roofs on the troops — The troops do not dis- 
lodge them — The King reviews the troops — The apparent inactivity of 
Louis-Philippe's sons — A theory about the difference in bloodshed — One of 
the three ugliest men in France comes to see the King — Seditious cries — 
Tlie King abdicates — Chaos — The sacking of the Tuileries — Receptions and 
feasting in the Galerie de Diane—" Du cafe pour nous, des cigarettes pour 
les dames" — The dresses of the princesses — The bourgeois feast the gamins 
who guard the barricades — The Republic proclaimed — The rift-ratl' insist 
upon illuminations — An actor promoted to the Governorship of tlie Hotel 
de Ville — Some members of the " provisional Government" at work — Mery 
on Lamartine — Why the latter proclaimed the Republic. 

I WAS returning home earlier than usual on Saturday 
night, the 19th of February, '48, when, at the corner of the 
Rue Lafitte, I happened to run against a young Englishman 
who had been established for some years in Paris as the rep- 
resentative of his father, a wealthy cotton-spinner in the 
north. We had frequently met before, and a cordial feeling 
had sprung up between ns, based at first — I am bound to say 
— on our common contempt for the vanity of the French. 

" Come and breakfast with me to-morrow morning," he 



THE BEGINNING OP THE REVOLUTION OF '48. 209 

said ; " I fancy you will enjoy yourself. We will breakfast 
in my quarter, and you will see the National Guards in all 
their glory. They will muster very strong to-morrow, if it 
be fine." 

" But why to-morrow? " I replied. " I was under the im- 
pression that the idea of the Reformist banquet in the 
Champs-Elysees had been abandoned, so there will be no 
occasion for them to parade? Besides, that would be on 
Tuesday only." 

" It has been abandoned, but if you think that it will 
prevent them from turning out, you are very much mis- 
taken ; at any rate, come and listen to the preliminaries." 

I promised him to come, but I had not the slightest idea 
that I was going to witness a kind of mild prologue to a rev- 
olution 

Next morning turned out very fine — balmy spring weath- 
er — and as I sauntered along the Boulevards Montmartre 
and Poissonnicre to the place of appointment the streets were 
already crowded with people in their Sunday clothes. The 
place where I was to meet my -English friend was situated in 
the midst of a busy quarter, scarcely anything but ware- 
houses where they sold laces, and flowers, and silks ; some- 
thing like the neighbourhood, at the back of Cheapside. The 
wealthy tradesmen of those days did not live in the outskirts 
of Paris, as they did later on ; and when my friend and I 
reached the principal cafe and restaurant on tlie Place du 
Oaire — I think it was called the Cafe Gregoire — there was 
scarcely a table vacant. The habitues were, almost to a man, 
National Guards, prosperous business men, considerably more 
anxious, as I found out in a short time, to play a political 
part than to maintain public tranquillity. If I remember 
rightly, one of them, a chemist and druggist, who was pointed 
out to me then, became a deputy after the fall of the Second 
Empire ; and I may notice en passant that this same spot 
was the political hothouse which produced, afterwards. Mon- 
sieur Tirard, who started life as a small manufacturer of imi- 
tation jewellery, and who rose to be Minister of Finances 
under the Third Republic. 

The breakfast was simply excellent, the wine genuine 
throughout, the coffee and cognac all that could be wished ; 
and, when I asked my friend to let me look at the bill, out 
of simple curiosity, or, rather, for the sake of comparing 
prices with those of the Cafes de Paris and Riche, I found 

15 



210 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

that he had spent something less than eleven francs. At the 
Cafe Riche it would have been twenty-five francs, and, at the 
present time, one would be charged double that sum. These 
were the palmy days of the Cuisine Fran9aise, or, to call it 
by another name, the Cuisine Bourgeoise, for which, a few 
years later, a stranger in Paris would have almost sought 
in vain. Luckil}^, however, for my enjoyment and digestive 
organs, I was no stranger to Paris and to the Blench ; if I 
had been, both the former would have been spoilt, the excite- 
ment of those around me being such as to lead the alien to 
believe that there would be an instantaneous departure for 
the Tuileries, and a revival of the bloody scenes of the first 
revolution. It has been my lot, in after-years, to hear a great 
deal of political drivel in French and English, but it was 
sound philosophy compared to what I heard that morning. 
I have spoken before of the Hotel des Haricots, where men 
like Hugo, Balzac, Beranger, and Alfred de Musset chose to 
be imprisoned rather than perform their duties as National 
Guards. After that, I could fully appreciate their reluc- 
tance to be confounded with such a set of pompous wind- 
bags. 

It came to nothing that day, but I had become interested, 
and made an appointment with my friend for the Tuesday, 
unless something should happen in the interval. Still, I did 
not think that the monarchy of July was doomed, though, 
on returning to the Boulevards, I could not help noticing 
that the excitement had considerably increased during the 
time I had been at breakfast. By twelve o'clock that night 
I was convinced that I had been mistaken, and that the 
dynasty of the D'Orleans had not a week to live. All the 
theatres were still open, but I had an invitation to a ball, 
given by Poirson, the then late director of the Gymnase 
Thedtre, at his house in the Faubourg Poissonniere. " Nous 
ne danserons plus jamais sous Louis-Philippe ! " was the 
general cry, which did not prevent the guests from thoroughly 
enjoying themselves. 

Next morning, Monday, there seemed to be a lull in the 
storm, but on the Tuesday the signs of the coming hurricane 
were plainly visible on the horizon. The Ministry of Marine 
was guarded by a company of linesmen. I had some busi- 
ness in the Rue de Rivoli, which at that time ended almost 
abruptly at the Louvre ; and, on my way to the Cafe Gre- 
goire, I met patrol upon patrol of National Guards beating 



THE CAFE GREGOIRE. ' 211 

the " assembly." I had occasion to pass before the Comedie- 
rran9aise. The ominous black-lettered slip of yellow paper, 
with the word Relache^ was pasted across the evening's bill. 
That was enough for me. I remembered the words of my 
old tutor : " When the Comedie-Fran9aise shuts its doors in 
perilous times, it is like the battening down of the hatches 
in dirty weather. There is mischief brewing." AVhen I got 
to the Place du Caire, I was virtually in the thick of it. 
With the exception of my friend and I, there was not a man 
in mufti. Even the proprietor had donned his uniform. 
Our fillet of beef was brought to us by a corporal, and our 
colfee poured out by a sergeant. W^h other these warrior- 
waiters meant to strike one blow for freedom and to leave 
the place to take care of itself, we were unable to make out ; 
but their patrons were no longer " messieurs," but had al- 
ready become " citoyens." I was tempted to say, in the 
words of Dupin — the one who was President of the Cham- 
ber on the day of the Coup d'Etat, and who was Louis-Phi- 
lippe's personal friend, " Soyons citoyens, mais restons mes- 
sieurs," but I thought it better not. M r friend had given 
up all idea of attending to business. '' It will not be of the 
least use," he said. " If I had ribbons to sell instead of cot- 
tons, I might make a lot of money, though ; for I am open 
to wager that some of our patriotic neighbours, while they 
are going to bell the cat outside, have given orders to their 
workpeople to manufacture tricolour cockades and rosettes 
with the magic R. F. (Republique Fran9Mise) in the centre." 

" You do not mean that they would think of such a thiug 
at such a critical moment, even if the republic were a greater 
probability than it appears to be ? " I remonstrated. 

" I do mean to say so," he replied, beckoning at the same 
time to a sleek, corpulent lieutenant, standing a few paces 
away. " Can you do with a nice lot of narrow silk ribbon ? " 
he asked, as the individual walked up to our table. 

" What colour ? " inquired the lieutenant. 

My friend gave me a significant look, and named all the 
hues of the rainbow except white, red, and blue. 

" Won't do," said the lieutenant, shaking his head. " If 
it had been red, white, and blue I would have bought as much 
as you like, because I am manufacturing rosettes for the good 
cause." After this he walked away. 

On the Thursday afternoon the Boulevards and principal 
thoroughfares swarmed with peripatetic vendors of the re- 



212 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

publican insignia, and some of my friends expressed their sur- 
prise as to where they had come from in so short a time. See- 
ing that they were Frenchmen, I held my tongue, even when 
one professed to explain, " They have come from England ; 
they are always speculating upon our misfortunes, though 
they do it cleverly enough. They got scent of what was com- 
ing, and sent them over as quickly as they could. Truly they 
are a great nation — of shopkeepers ! " I was reminded of 
Beranger's scapegrace, when he was accused of being drunk. 

" Qu'est que cela me fait, a moi ? 
Que Ton m'appelle ivrogne ? " 
he sings. 

As the afternoon wore on, the excitement increased ; the 
news from the Boulevards became alarming, and at about 
three o'clock the company marched away. As a matter of 
course we followed, and equally, as a matter of course, did not 
leave them until 2.30 next morning. Casualties to report. A 
large scratch in one of the drummer's cheeks, made by an 
oyster-shell, flung at the company as it turned round the cor- 
ner of the Rue de Clery. Is'o battles, no skirmishes, a great 
deal of fraternizing with " le peuple souverain," whom, in 
their own employ, the well-to-do tradesmen would have or- 
dered about like so many mangy curs. 

From that day forth I have never dipped into any history 
of modern France, professing to deal with the political causes 
and effects of the various upheavals during the nineteenth 
century in France. They may be worth reading ; I do not 
say that they are not. I have preferred to look at the men 
who instigated those disorders, and have come to the conclu- 
sion that, had each of them been born with five or ten thou- 
sand a year, their names would have been absolutely wanting 
in connection with them. This does not mean that the dis- 
orders would not have taken place, but they would have al- 
ways been led by men in want of five or ten thousand a year. 
On the other hand, if the D'Orleans family had been less 
wealthy than they are there would have been no firmly set- 
tled third republic ; if Louis-Napoleon had been less poor, 
there would, in all probability, have been no second empire ; 
if the latter had lasted another year, we should have fomid 
Gambetta among the ministers of Napoleon III., just like 
Emile OUivier, of the " light heart." " Les convictions po- 
litiques en France sont basees sur le fait que le louisd'or vaut 
sept fois plus que I'ecu de trois francs." This is the dictum 



A MILITARY SPECTACLE. 213 

of a man who never wished to be anything, who steadfastly 
refused all olfers to enter the arena of public life. 

My friend and I had been baulked of the drama we ex- 
pected — for we frankly confessed to one another that the 
utter annihilation of that company of National Guards 
would have left us perfectly unmoved, — and got instead, a 
kind of first act of a military spectacular play, such as we 
were in the habit of seeing at Franconi's. The civic war- 
riors were ostensibly bivouacking on the Boulevard St. Mar- 
tin; they stacked their muskets and fraternized with the 
crowd ; it would not have surprised us in the least to see a 
troupe of ballet dancers advance into our midst and give us 
the entertainment de rigueur — the intermede. It was tlie 
only thing wanting to complete the picture, from which even 
the low comedy incident was not wanting. An old woebe- 
gone creature, evidently the worse for liquor, had fallen 
down while a patrol of regulars was passing. He was not a 
bit hurt ; but there and then the rabble proposed to carry 
him to the Hotel de Ville, and to give him an apotheosis as 
a martyr to the cause. They had already fetched a stretcher, 
and were, notwithstanding his violent struggles, hoisting 
him on it, when prevented by the captain of the National 
Guards. 

Still, we returned next day to the Cafe Gregoire. In the 
middle of the place there lay an old man — that one, stark 
dead, who had been fired upon without rhyme or reason by a 
picket of the National Guards. It was only about eleven 
o'clock, and those valiant defenders of public order were still 
resting from their fatigue — at any rate, there were few of 
them about. There wa"s a discussion going on whether they 
should go out or not — a discussion confined to the captain, 
two lieutenants, and as many sub-lieutenants. They ap- 
peared not to have the least "idea of the necessity to refer 
for orders to the colonel or the head-quarters of the regiment 
or the legion, as it was called. They meant to settle the 
matter among themselves. The great argument in favour of 
calling out the men was that one of them, while standing at 
his window that very morning, was fired at by a passing rag- 
amuffin, who, instead of hitting him, shattered his window- 
panes. 

" Well," said one of the lieutenants, who had been op- 
posed to the calling out of the men, " then we are quits after 
all; for look at the old fellow lying out there." 



214 AN ENGLISHMAN IX PARIS. 

" Xo, we are not," retorts the captain ; " for he was shot 
by a mistake, so he doesn't count." 

" L'esprit ne perJ Jamais ses droits en France ; " so in 
another moment or two, the bugle sounded lustily throuU- 
out the quarter. We followed the buglers for a little while, 
It being still too early for our breakfast, and consequently 
enjoyed the felicity of seeing a good many of the warriors 
" in their habit as they lived " indoors— namely, in dressing- 
gown and slippers a:id smoking-caps. For most of them 
opened their windows on the first, second, and third floors, 
to inquire whether the call was urgent. The buglers entered 
into explanations. A^o, the call was not urgent, but the cap- 
tain had decided on a military promenade, just to reassure 
the neighbourhood, and to stimulate the martial spirit of the 
lagging members of t!ie company. The explanation invari- 
ably provoked the same answer, and in a voice not that of 
the citizen-warrior : " Que le capitainc attende iusqu'apres le 
dejeuner." 

Davoust has said that the first condition of the fitness of 
an army is its commissariat. In that respect every one of 
these JNational Guards was fit to be a Davoust, for their forti- 
fying of the inner man was not accomplished until close upon 
two clock. By that time thev marched out, saluted bv the 
cries of - V^ive la Reforme ! " 6t all the ragtag and bobtail 
from the Faubourgs du Temple and St. Antoine, who had in- 
vaded the principal thoroughfares. The " Marseillaise," the 
Chant des Girondins," " La Eepublique nous appelle" re- 
sounded through the air; and I was wondering whether 
they were packing their trunks at the Tuileries, also what 
these National Guards had come oat for. They only seemed 
to impede the efficient patrolling of the streets bv the reo-u- 
iars, and instead of dispersing the rabble, they attracted 
tliem. Ihey were evidently under the impression that they 
made a very goodly show, and at everv word of command I 
expected to see the captain burst asunder. When we ^ot to 
the Boulevard St. Martin, the latter was told that the sixth 
legion was stationed on the Boulevard du Temple. A move 
was made m that direction. 

Now '' Richard is Jdmself again ; " he is among the crowd 
he likes best— the crowd of the Boulevard du Crime, with its 
theatres, large and small, its raree and puppet shows, its 
open-air entertainments, its cafes and mountebanks; and, 
what IS more, he is there in his uniform, distinguished from 



THE CIVIC WARRIOR IN HIS GLORY. 215 

the rest, and consequently the cynosure of all the little ac- 
tresses and ^YQity figurantes who have just left the rehearsal 
— for by this time it is after three — and who are but too will- 
ing to be entertained. Appointments are made to dine or to 
sup together, without the slightest reference as to what may 
happen in the interval. All at once there is an outcry and 
a rush towards the Porte Saint-Martin ; our warriors are 
obliged to leave their inamoratas, and when they come to 
look for their muskets, which they have placed in a corner 
for convenience' sake, they find that a good many have disap- 
peared. The customers belonging to the sovereign people 
have slunk off with them. Nevertheless they join the ranks, 
for the bugle has sounded. At the corner of the Faubourg 
Saint-Martin, whence the noise proceeded, they are met by 
three or four score of the sovereign people, ragged, unkempt, 
who are pushing in front of them two of the students of the 
Ecole Polytechnique. The two young fellows are very pale, 
and can scarcely speak. Still they manage to explain that 
the Municipal Guard at the Saint-Martin barracks have fired 
upon the people : then they go their way. Whither ? Heaven 
only knows. But our captain, in the most stentorian of 
voices, gives the word of command, " To tlie right, wheel ! " 
and we are striding up the faubourg, which is absolutely 
deserted as far as the Rue des Marais. A collision seems 
pretty inevitable now, the more that the Municipal Guards 
are already taking aim, when all at once our captain and one 
of the lieutenants rush forward, and fling themselves into 
the arms of the officers of the Municipal Guards. Tableau ; 
and I am baulked once more of a good fight. I leave my 
friend to see the rest of this ridiculous comedy, and take my 
departure there and then. 

The following is my companion's account of what hap- 
pened after I left. I am as certain that every word of it is 
true as if I had been there myself, though it seems almost 
incredible that French officers, whose worst enemies have 
never accused them of being deficient in courage, should 
have acted so inconsiderately. 

" The officers of the National Guards appear to have as- 
sumed at once the office of protectors of the regulars against 
the violence of the crowd. Why the regulars should have 
submitted to this, seeing that tjfiey were far better armed 
than their would-be guardians, I am unable to say. Be this 
as it may, the regulars consented, the flag floating above the 



216 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

principal door of the barracks was taken down, and I really 
believe that the Municipal Guards stacked their arms and 
virtually handed them over to the others. But I will not 
vouch for it. At any rate, a few hours afterwards, while the 
company had gone to dinner, the barracks were assailed, the 
men and officers knocked down by the people, and the build- 
ing set on fire. When the fifth legion returned about eleven 
o'clock to the Faubourg Saint-Martin, the flames weie leap- 
ing up to the sky, so they turned their heels contentedly 
in the direction of the Boulevard du Temple, where they 
bivouacked between the Theatre de la Gaite and the Ambigu- 
Comique, while those who had made appointments with the 
little actresses went round by the stage doors to keep them. 
That, as far as I could judge, was the part of the fifth legion 
in the day's proceedings. I left them in all their glory, 
thinking themselves, no doubt, very fine fellows. 

" On the Thursday morning " — my companion told me 
all this on Saturday evening, the 26th of February — " I was 
Tip betimes, simply because the drumming and bugling pre- 
vented my sleeping. At eight, the Cafe Gregoire was already 
very full, the heroes of the previous night had returned to 
perform their ablutions, and also, I suppose, to reassure their 
anxious spouses ; but they had no longer that conquering air 
I noticed when I left them the night before. Whether they 
had come to the conclusion that both in love and war they 
had reaped but barren victories, I cannot say, but their re- 
publican ardour, it seemed to me, had considerably cooled 
down. I am convinced that, notwithstanding the events of 
Wednesday night in the Faubourg Saint-Martin, they were 
under the impression that neither the people nor the military 
would resort to further extremities. I cannot help thinking 
that, after I left, not a single man could have remained at his 
post, because not one amongst them seemed to have an idea 
of the horrible slaughter on the Boulevard des Capucines.* 

* The author, as will be seen directly, saw nothing of that massacre, though 
he must have passed within a few hundred yards of the spot immediately be- 
fore it began. It would have been the same if he had ; he could not have ex- 
plained the cause, seeing that the most painstaking historians who have con- 
sulted the most trustworthy eye-witnesses have failed to do so. It will always 
remain a mystery Avhence the first shot came, whether from the military who 
were drawn up across the Boulevard des Capucines, on the spot where now 
stands the Grand Cafe, or from the crowd that wanted to pass, in order to pro- 
ceed to Odilon-Barrot's to serenade him, because, notwithstanding the opposi- 
tion of the king, he was to be included in the new ministry, which Mole had 
been instructed to form. It may safely be said, however, that, but for that shot 



THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION. 217 

They were not left very long in ignorance of tlie real state of 
affairs, and then they saw at once that they had roused a 
spectre they would be unable to lay. From that moment, it 
is my opinion, they would have willingly drawn back, but it 
was too late. While they were still debating, an individual 
rushed in, telling them that one or two regiments, command- 
ed by a general (who turned out to be General Bedeau), had 
drawn up in front of the barricade which had been thrown 
up during the night in the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, and 
was being defended by a detachment of the fifth legion. 
They all ran out, and I ran with them. When we got to the 
boulevard, matters had already been arranged, and they were 
just in time to join the escort General Bedeau had accepted, 
after having consented not to execute the orders with which 
he had been entrusted. By that time I began to perceive 
which way the wind was blowing : the canaille had uncere- 
moniously linked their arms in those of the National Guards, 
and insisted, courteously but firmly, on carrying their fire- 
arms. When we got to the Rue Montmartre, they took the 
horses out of the gun-carriages, and the soldiers looked tame- 
ly on, notwithstanding the commands of their officers. When 
the latter endeavoured to enforce their orders by hitting 
them with the flat of their swords, they simply left the ranks 
and joined the rabble. I had had enough of it, and made 
my way home by the back streets. I had had enough of it, 
and kept indoors until this afternoon." 

Thus far my informant. As for myself, I saw little on 
the Wednesday night of what was going on. It was my own 
fault : I was too optimistic. I had scarcely gone a few 
steps, after my dinner, when, just in front of the Gymnase, 
they began shouting, '•'-La Patrie, Journal du soir; achetez 
La Patrie. Voyez le nouveau ministere de Monsieur Mole." 
I remember giving the fellow half a franc, at which he grum- 
bled, though it was three times the ordinary price. On 
opening the paper, I rashly concluded from what I read that 
the revolution was virtually at an end, and I was the more 
confirmed in my opinion by the almost instantaneous light- 
ing up of the Boulevards. It was like a fairy scene : people 
were illuminating — a little bit too soon, as it turned out. 
Being tired of wandering, and feeling no inclination for bed, 

and the slauorhter consequent upon it, the revolution might have been averted 
then — after all, perhaps, only temporarily. — Editor. 



218 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

I turned into the Gymnase. There were Bressant and Rose 
Cheri and Arnal ; I would surely be able to spend a few 
pleasant hours. But alack and alas ! the house presented a 
very doleful appearance — dead-heads, to a man ; and very 
few of these, people who, if they could not fiddle themselves, 
iike Nero while Home was burning, would go to hear fiddling 
under no matter what circumstances, provided they were not 
asked to pay. I did not stay long, but when I came out into 
the streets the noise was too deafening for me. The " Mar- 
seillaise " has always had a particularly jarring effect upon, 
my nerves. There are days when I could be cruel enough to 
prefer " the yells of those ferocious soldiers, as they murder 
in cold blood the sons and the companions " of one section 
of defenceless patriots, to the stirring strains of the other 
section as they figuratively rush to the rescue ; and on that 
particular evening I felt in that mood. So, when I got to the 
Boulevard Montmartre, I turned into the Theatre des Varie- 
tes. I remember the programme up to this day. They were 
playing " Le Suisse de Marly," " Le Marquis de Lauzun," 
" Les Extremes se touchent," and " Les Vieux Peches." I had 
seen the second and the last piece at least a dozen times, but 
I was always ready to see them again for the sake of Yirginie 
Dejazet in the one, of Boufi'e in the other. The lessee at 
that time was an Englishman. Bouffe and I had always 
kept up our friendship ; so I made up my mind to go and 
have a chat with him, hoping that Dejazet, whose conversa- 
tion affected one like a bottle of champagne, would join us. 
The house, like the Gymnase, was almost empty, but I made 
my way behind the scenes, and in about half an hour forgot 
all about the events outside. Bouffe was telling me anec- 
dotes about his London performances, and Dejazet was imi- 
tating the French of some of the bigwigs of King Leopold's 
court ; so the time passed pleasantly enough. At the end of 
the performance we proposed taking supper, and turned 
dow^n the Rue Montmartre. It Avas late when I returned 
home, consequently I saw nothing of the slaughter on the 
Boulevard des Capucines. 

Though I had gone to bed late, I was up betimes on the 
Thursday morning. A glance at the Boulevards, as I turned 
the corner of my street about half-past nine, convinced me 
that the illuminations of the previous night had been pre- 
mature, and that before the day was out there would be an 
end of the monarchy of July. A slight mist was still hang- 



THE SOLDIERS AND THE PEOPLE. 219 

ing over the city as I strolled in the direction of the Made- 
leine, and the weather was damp and raw, but in about half 
an hour the sun broke through. A shot was heard now and 
then, but I myself saw no collision then between the troops 
and the people. On the contrary, it looked to me as if the 
former would have been glad to be left alone. As I had been 
obliged to leave home without m}^ usual cup of tea for want 
of milk — the servant had told me there was none — I went 
back a little way to Tortoni's, where I was greeted with the 
same answer. I could have tea or coifee or chocolate made 
with water, but milk there was none on that side of Paris, 
and, unless things took a turn, there would be no butter. The 
sovereign people had thrown up barricades during the night 
round all the northern and north-western issues, and would 
not let the milk-carts pass. They, no doubt, had some more 
potent fluids to fall back upon, for a good many, even at that 
early hour, were by no means steady in their gait. The 
Boulevards were swarming with them. Since then, I have 
seen these sovereign people getting the upper hand twice, 
viz. on the 4th of September, '70, and on the 18th of March, 
'71. I have seen them during the siege of Paris, and I have 
no hesitation in saying that, for cold-blooded, apish, monkey- 
ish, tigerish cruelty, there is nothing on the face of God's 
earth to match them, and that no concessions wrung from 
society on their behalf will ever make them anything else 
but tlie fiends in human shape they are. 

After my fruitless attempt to get my accustomed break- 
fast, I resumed my perambulations, this time taking the Eue 
Yivienne as far as the Palais-Royal. It must have been be- 
tween half -past ten and eleven when I reached the Place du 
Carrousel, which, at a rough guess, was occupied by about 
five thousand regular infantry and horse and National Guards. 
The Place du Carrousel was not then, what it became later 
on, a large open space. Part of it was encumbered with nar- 
row streets of very tall houses, and from their windows and 
roofs the sovereign people — according to an officer who had 
been on duty from early morn — had been amusing themselves 
by firing on the troops, — not in downright volleys, but with 
isolated shots, picking out a man here and there. " But," I 
remonstrated, " half a dozen pompiers and a score of lines- 
men could dislodge them in less than ten minutes, instead of 
returning their shots one by one." " So they could," was the 
reply, " but orders came from the Chateau not to do so, and 



220 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

here we are. Besides," added my informant, " I doubt very 
much, if I gave my men the word of command to storm the 
place, whether they would do so; they are thoroughly de- 
moralized. On our way hither I had the greatest difficulty 
in keepmg them together. Without a roll-call I could not 
exactly tell you how many are missing, but as we came alono- 
I noticed several falling out and going into the wine-shops 
with the rabble. They did not come back again. I had to 
shut my eyes to it. If I had attempted to prevent it, there 
would_ Jiave been a more horrible slaughter than there was 
last night on the Boulevards, and, what is worse, the men 
who remained staunch would have been in a minority, and 
not able to stand their ground. The mob have got hold of 
the muskets of the National Guards. I dare say, as you 
came along, you noticed on many doors, written up in chalk, 
*Arms given up,' and on some the words 'with pleasure' 
added to the statement." It was perfectly true; I had 
noticed it. 

I was still talking to the captain when the drums be^an 
to beat and the buglers sounded the salute. At the same 
moment I saw the King, in the uniform of a general of the 
JNational Guards, cross the court-yard on horseback. I no- 
ticed a great many ladies at the ground-floor windows of the 
palace, but could not distinguish their faces. I was told aft- 
erwards that they were the Queen and the princesses, endeav- 
ouring to encourage the septuagenarian monarch. Louis-Phi- 
lippe was seventy-five then. 

I have often heard and seen it stated by historians of the 
revolution of '48, that the Duke d'Aumale and tlie Prince de 
Jomville, had they been in Paris, would have saved tlieir fa- 
ther s crown. This is an assumption which it is difficult to 
disprove, seeing how popular these young princes were then, 
iiut if the assumption is meant to convev that the mob at the 
sight of these brave young fellows woukf have laid down their 
arms without fighting, I can unhesitatingly contradict it. 
VV hat the National Guard might have done it is impossible to 
say. The regulars, no doubt, would have followed the princes 
into battle, as they would have followed their brother, De Ne- 
mours, notwithstanding the latter's unpopularity. There 
would have been a great deal of bloodshed, but the last word 
would have remained with tlie Government. Louis-Philippe's 
greatest title to glory is that of having prevented such blood- 
shed. But to show how little such abnegation of self is un- 



EXIT LOUIS-PHILIPPE. 221 

derstood by even the most educated Frenchmen, I must re- 
late a story which was told to me many years afterwards by a 
French officer who, at that time, had just returned from the 
Pontifical States, where he had helped to defeat the small 
army of Garibaldi. He was describing the battle-field of 
Mentana to Napoleon III., and mentioned a prisoner he had 
made who turned out to be an old acquaintance from the 
Boulevards. " He was furious against Garibaldi, sire," said 
the officer, " because the latter had placed him in the neces- 
sity, as it were, of firing upon his own countrymen in a strange 
land. Said the prisoner, ' I am not an emigre ; I would not 
have gone to Coblenz ; I am a Frenchman from the crown of 
my head to the sole of my foot. If it came to fighting my 
countrymen in the streets of Paris, that would be a dilferent 
thing. I should not have the slightest scruple of firing upon 
the Imperial Guards or upon the rabble, as the case might 
be, for that would be civil war.' That's what he said, sire." 

Xapoleon nodded his head, and with his wonderful, sphinx- 
like smile, replied, " Your prisoner Avas right ; it makes all the 
difference." The Orleans princes, save perhaps one, never 
knew these distinctions; if they had known them, the Comte 
de Paris might be King of France to-day. 

To return for a moment to Louis-Philippe as I saw him 
at the last moments of his reign. He felt evidently disap- 
pointed at the lukewarm reception he received, for though 
there was a faint cry among the regulars of " Vive le Koi ! " 
it was immediately drowned by the stentorian one of the rab- 
ble of " Vive la Eeforme ! " in which a good many of the Na- 
tional Guards joined. He was evidently in a hurry to get 
back to the Tuileries, and, when he disappeared in the door- 
way, I had looked upon him for the last time in my life. An 
hour and a half later, he had left Paris for ever. 



Personally I saw nothing of the flight of the King, nor of 
the inside of the Tuileries, until the ro3'al family were gone. 
Tlie story of that flight was told to me several years later by 
the Due de Montpensier. What is w^orse, in those days it 
never entered my mind that a time would come when I should 
feel desirous of committing my reminiscences to paper, con- 
sequently I kept no count of the hours that went by, and can- 
not, therefore, give the exact sequence of events. I do not 
know how long I stood among the soldiers and the crowd, 



222 ' AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

scarcely divided from one another even by an imaginary line. 
It was not a pleasant crowd, thongli to my great surprise there 
were a great many more decently dressed persons in it than I 
could have expected, so I stayed on. About half an honr 
after the King re-entered the Tuileries, I noticed two gentle- 
men elbow their way through the serried masses. I had no 
difficulty in recognizing the one in civilian's clothes. Though 
he was by no means so famous as he became afterwards, there 
was hardly a Parisian who would not have recognized him on 
the spot. His portrait had been drawn over and over again, 
at least as many times as that of the King, and it is a posi- 
tive fact that nurses frightened their babies with it. He was 
the ugliest man of the century. It was M. Adolphe Cre- 
mieux.* His companion was in uniform. I learnt after- 
wards that it was General Gourgaud, but I did not know him 
then except by name, and in connection with his polemics 
with the Duke of Wellington, in which the latter did not 
altogether behave with the generosity one expects from an 
English gentleman towards a fallen foe. As they passed, the 
old soldier must have been recognized, because not one, but 
at least a hundred cries resounded, " Vive la grande armee ! 
Vive FEmpereur ! " In after years I thought that these cries 
sounded almost prophetic, though I am pretty sure that those 
w^ho uttered them had not the slightest hope of, and perhaps 
not even a desire for, a ]S"apoleonic restoration ; at any rate, 
not the majority. There is one thing, however, which could 
not have failed to strike the impartial observer during the 
next twenty years. I have seen a good many riots, small and 
large, during the Second Republic and the Second Empire. 
" Seditious cries," as a matter of course, were freely shouted. 
I have never heard a single one of " Vivent les D'Orleans ! " 
or " Vivent les Bourbons ! " I have already spoken more than 
once about the powerful influence of the Napoleonic legend 
in those days ; I shall have occasion to refer to it again and 
again when speaking about the nephew of the first Kapoleon. 
Oremieux and Gourgaud could not have been inside the 
Tuileries more than a quarter of an hour when they rushed 
out again. They evidently made a communication to the 
troops, because I beheld the latter waving their arms, but, of 



* The author is slightly mistaken. The two iiLrliest men in France in the 
nineteenth century were Anclrieux, wlio wrote '" Les EtourJis," and Littre ; but 
Creniieux ran them very hard. — Editor. 



SCENES AT THE TUILERIES. 223 

course, I did not catch a word of what they said ; I was too 
far away. It was, I learnt afterwards, the announcement of 
the advent of a new ministry, and the appointment of a new 
commander of the National Guards. When I saw hats and 
caps flung into the air, and heard the people shouting, I 
made certain that the revolution was at an end. I was mis- 
taken. It was not Cremieux's communication at all that had 
provoked the enthusiasm ; it was a second communication, 
made by some one from the doorway of the Tuileries im- 
mediately after the eminent barrister had disappeared among 
the crovvd, to the effect that the King had abdicated in 
favour of tlie Comte de Paris, with the Duchesse d'Orleans 
as regent. Between the first and second announcements 
there could not have elapsed more than five or six minutes, 
ten at the utmost, because, before I had time to recover from 
my surprise, I saw Cremieux and Gourgaud battle through 
the tightly wedged masses once more, and re-enter the 
Tuileries to verify the news. I am writing this note espe- 
cially by the light of subsequent information, for, I repeat, it 
was impossible to understand events succinctly by the quickly 
succeeding effects they produced at the time. Another ten 
minutes elapsed — ten minutes which I shall never forget, be- 
cause every one of the thousands present on the Place du 
Carrousel was in momentary danger of having the life 
crushed out of him. It was no one's fault ; there was, if I 
recollect rightly, but one narrow issue on the river-side, and 
there was a dense seething mass standing on the banks, not- 
withstanding the danger of that position, for the insurgents 
were firing freely and recklessly across the stream. Egress 
on the opposite side of the Place du Carrousel, that of the 
Place du Palais-Royal, had become absolutely impossible, for 
at that moment a fierce battle was raging there between the 
' people and the National Guards for the possession of the 
military post of the Chateau d'Eau ; * and those of the non- 
combatants who did not think it necessary to pay for the fall 
or the maintenance of the monarchy of July with life or 
limb, tried to get out of the bullets' reach. There was but 
one way of doing so, by a stampede in a southerly direction ; 
the Rue de Rivoli, at any rate that part which existed, was 

* ?>o called after a larcre ornamental fountain; the same, I believe, which 
8ul)se(iuently was transferred to what is now called the Place de la Repubiique, 
and which finally found its way to the Avenue Daumcsnil, where it stands at 
present. — Editor. 



224 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

entirely blocked to the west, the congeries of streets that 
have been pulled down since to make room for its prolonga- 
tion to the east were bristling with barricades : hence the 
terrible, suffocating crush, in which several persons lost their 
lives. The most curious incident connected with these awful 
ten minutes was that of a woman and her baby. When 
Cremieux issued for the second time from the Tuileries, it 
was to confirm the news of the King's abdication. Almost 
immediately afterwards, the masses on the quay were making 
for the Place de la Concorde and the Palais- Bourbon, 
whither, it was rumoured, the Duchesse D 'Orleans and her 
two sons were going ; and gradually the wedged-in mass on 
the Place du Carrousel found breathing space. Then the 
woman was seen to fall down like a ninepin that has been 
toppled over; she was dead, but her baby, which she had 
held above the crowd, and which they had, as it were, to 
wrench from her grasp, was alive and well. 

I stood for a little while longer on the Place du Carrousel, 
trying to make up my mind whether to proceed to the Place de 
la Concorde or to the Place de I'Hotel de Ville. I knew that 
the newly-elected powers, whosoever they might be, w^ould 
make their appearance at the latter spot, but how long it 
would be before they came, I had not the least idea. I was 
determined, however, to see at any rate one act of the drama 
or the farce ; for even then there was no knowing in what 
guise events would present themselves. I could hear the 
reports of firearms on both sides of me, though why there 
should be firing when the King had thrown up the sponge, 
I could not make out for the life of me. I did not know 
France so well then as I know her now. I did not know 
then that there is no man or, for that matter, no woman on 
the civilized earth so heedlessly and obdurately bloodthirsty 
when he or she works himself into a fury as the professedly 
debonnaire Parisian proletarian. Nevertheless, I decided to 
go to the Hotel de Ville, and had carefully worked my way 
as far as the site of the present Place du Chatelet, when I 
was compelled to retrace my steps. The elite of the Paris 
scum was going to dictate its will to the new Government; 
it was marching to the Chamber of Deputies with banners 
flying. One of the latter was a red-and-white striped flannel 
petticoat, fastened to a tremendously long pole. I had no 
choice, and if at that moment my friends had seen me they 
might have easily imagined that I had become one of the lead- 



THE SACKING OF THE TUILERIES. 225 

ers of the revolutionary mob. We took by the Quai de la Me- 
gisserie, and just before the Pont des Arts there was a mo- 
mentary halt. The vanguard, which I was apparently lead- 
ing, had decided to turn to the right ; in other words, to 
visit the abode of the hated tyrant. Had I belonged to the 
main division, I should have witnessed a really more im- 
portant scene, from the historical point of view ; as it was, I 
witnessed — 

The Sackij^g of the Tuileries. 

The idea that " there is a divinity that hedgeth round a 
king " seemed, I admit, preposterous enough at that mo- 
m.ent; but I could not help being struck with its partial 
truth on seeing the rabble invade the palace. When I say 
the rabble, I mean the rabble, though there were a great 
many persons whom it would be an insult to class as such, 
and who from sheer curiosity, or because they could not help 
themselves, had gone in with them. The doors proved too 
narrow, and those who could not enter by that way, entered 
by the windows. The whole contingent of the riff-raff, male 
and female, weltering in the adjacent streets — and such 
streets! — was there. Well, for the first ten minutes they 
stood positively motionless, not daring to touch anything. 
It was not the fear of being caught pilfering and punished 
summarily that prevented them. The minority which might 
have protested was so utterly insignificant in numbers, as to 
make action on their part impossible. Xo, it was neither 
fear nor shame that stayed the rabble's hands ; it was a sen- 
timent for which I can find no name. It was the conscious- 
ness that these objects had belonged to a king, to a royal 
family, which made them gaze upon them in a kind of 
superstitious wonder. It did not last long. We were on the 
ground floor, which mainly consisted of the private apart- 
ments of the household of Louis-Philippe. We were wander- 
ing, or rather squeezing, through the study and bedroom of 
the King himself, through the sitting-rooms of the princes 
and princesses. I do not think that a single thing was taken 
from there at that particular time. But as if the atmosphere 
their rulers had breathed but so very recently became too 
oppressive, the crowd swayed towards the vestibule, and 
ascended the grand staircase. Then the spell was broken. 
The second batch that entered through the windows, when 
"we had made room for them, were apparently not affected 

16 



226 -^*^^ ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

by wonder and respect, for, half an hour later, when I came 
down again, every cupboard, every wardrobe, had been forced, 
though it is but fair to say that very little seems to have been 
taken ; the contents, books, clothing, linen, etc., were scat- 
tered on the floors ; but the cellars, containing over four 
thousand bottles of vvdne, were positively empty. Two hours 
later, however, the clotliing, especially that of the princesses, 
had totally disappeared. It had disapj^eared on the backs 
of the inmates of St. Lazare, the doors of which had been 
thrown open, and who had rushed to the Tuileries to deck 
themselves with these fine feathers which, in this instance, 
did not make fine birds. I saw some of them that same 
evening on the Boulevards, and a more heart-rending spec- 
tacle I have rarely beheld. 

The three hours I spent at the Tuileries were so crowded 
with events as to make a succinct account of them altogether 
impossible. I can only give fragments, because, though at 
first the wearers of broadcloth were not molested, this toler- 
ance did not last long on the part of the new possessors of 
the Tuileries ; and consequently the former gradually dropped 
off, and those of them who remained had to be very circum- 
spect, and, above all, not to linger long in the same spot. 
This growing hostility might have been nipped in the bud 
by our following the example of the National Guards, and 
taking off our coats and fraternizing with the rabble ; but I 
frankly confess that I had neither the courage nor the stom- 
ach to do so. I have read descriptions of mutinous sailors 
stowing in casks of rum and gorging themselves with vict- 
uals ; revolting as such scenes must be to those who take no 
active part in them, I doubt whether they could be as revolt- 
ing as the one I witnessed in the Gallerie de Diane. 

The Gallerie de Diane was one of the large reception 
rooms on the first floor, but it generally served as the dining 
and breakfast room of the royal family. The table had been 
laid for about three dozen persons, because, as a rule, Louis- 
Philippe invited the ^^rincipal members of his military and 
civil households to take their repasts with him. The break- 
fast had been intermitted, and not been cleared away. When 
I entered the apartment some sixty or seventy ruffians of 
both sexes were seated at the board, while a score or so were 
engaged in waiting upon them. They were endeavouring to 
accomplish what the Highest Authority has declared impos- 
sible of accomplishment, namely, the making of silken purses 



THE SOVEREIGN PEOPLE AT TABLE. 227 

out of sows' ears. They were " putting on " what they con- 
sidered ^' company manners," and, under any other circum- 
stances but these, the attempt would have proved irresistibly 
comic to the educated spectator; as it was, it brought tears 
to one's eyes. I have already hinted elsewhere that the cui- 
sine at the Tuileries during Louis-Philippe's reign was ex- 
ecrable, though the wine was generally good. Bad as was 
the fare on that abandoned breakfast- table, it must, never- 
theless, have been superior to that usually partaken of by 
the convives who had taken the place of the fugitive king 
and princes. They, the convives, however, did not think so ; 
they criticized the food, and ordered the improvised attend- 
ants " to give them something different ; " then they turned 
to their female companions, tilling their glasses and paying 
them compliments. But for the fact of another batch ea- 
gerly claiming their turn, the repast would have been indefi- 
nitely prolonged ; as it was, the provisions in the palace were 
running short, and the deficiency had to be made up by sup- 
plies from outside. The inner man being refreshed, the la- 
dies were invited to take a stroll through the apartments, 
pending the serving of the cafe and liqueurs. The prepa- 
ration of the mocha was somewhat difficult, seeing the uten- 
sils necessary for the supply of so large a company were 
probably not at hand, and the ingredients themselves in the 
store-rooms of the palace. Xothing daunted, one of the 
self-invited guests rose and said, in a loud voice, " Permettez 
moi d'olfrir le cafe a la compagnie," which offer was re- 
ceived with tumultuous applause. Suiting the action to the 
w^ord, he pulled out a small canvas bag, and took from it 
two five-franc pieces. " Qu'on aille chercher du cafe et du 
meilleur," he said to one of the guests who had stepped for- 
ward to execute his orders, for they sounded almost like it ; 
and I w^as wondering why those professed champions of 
equality did not tell him to fetch the coffee himself. Then 
he added, " Et pendant que tu y es, citoyen, apporte des 
cigarres pour nous et des cigarettes pour les dames." The 
" citoyen " was already starting on his errand, when the 
other " citoyen " called him back. " Ecoute," he said ; " tu 
n'acheteras rien a moins d'y etre force. Je crois que tu 
n'auras qu'a demander a la premiere epicerie venue ce qu'il 
te faut, et ainsi au premier bureau de tabac. lis out si peur, 
ces sales bourgeois qu'ils n'oseront pas te refuser. En tout 
cas prends un fusil ; on ne salt pas ce qui pent arriver ; mais 



22S AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

ne t'en sers pas qu'en cas de necessite : " — which meant 
plainly enough, " If they refuse to give you the coffee and 
the tobacco, shoot them down." 

Of course, I am unable to say how these two commodities 
were eventually procured ; but I have every reason to believe 
that this messenger had only " to ask and have," without as 
much as showing his musket. There is no greater cur at 
troublous times than the Paris shopkeeper. The merest 
urchin Avill terrify him. Even on the previous day I had 
seeu bands of gamins who had constituted themselves the 
guardians of the barricades — and there was one in nearly 
every street — levy toll without the slightest resistance, when 
a few well-administered cuffs would have sent them flying, 
so I have not the slightest doubt that our friend had all the 
credit of his generosity without disbursing a penny — unless 
his delegate fleeced him also, on the theory that a man who 
could " fork out " ten francs at a moment's notice was 
nothing more or less than a bourgeois. However, when I 
returned after about forty minutes' absence, it was very evi- 
dent that both the coffee and the tobacco had arrived, because 
the Galerie de Diane, large as it was, was full of smoke, and 
three saucepans, filled with water, were standing on the fire, 
while two or three smaller ones were arranged on the almost 
priceless marble mantelpiece. Another batch of ravenous 
republicans had taken their seats at the board, their predeces- 
sors whiling the time away in sweet converse with the " ladies." 
Some of the latter were more usefully engaged ; they were 
rifling the cabinets of the most rare and valuable Sevres, and 
arranging the cups, saucers, platters on their tops to be ready 
for the beverage that was being brewed. I was w^ondering 
how they had got at these art treasures, having noticed an 
hour before that their receptacles were locked and the keys 
taken away The doors had simply been battered in with the 
hammer of the great clock of the Tuileries. 

It was of a piece with the wanton destruction I had wit- 
nessed elsewhere, during my absence from the Galerie de 
Diane. Before I returned thither, I had seen the portrait of 
General Bugeaud in the Salle des Marechaux, literally stabbed 
with bayonets ; the throne treated to a similar fate, and car- 
ried off to the Place de la Bastille to be burned publicly ; the 
papers of the royal family mercilessly flung to the winds ; the 
dresses of the princesses torn to ribbons or else put on the 
backs of the vilest of the vile. 



THE PKOVISIONAL GOVERNMENT. 229 

There was only one comic incident to relieve the horror 
of the whole. In one of the private apartments the rabble 
had come upon an aged parrot screeching at the top of its 
voice, " A bas Guizot ! " The bird became a hero there and 
then, and was absoluteh' crammed with sweets and sugar. 
That one comic note was not enough to dispel my disgust, 
and after the scene in the Galerie de Diane which I have 
just described, I made my way into the street. 

I had scarcely proceeded a few steps, when I heard the 
not very startling news that the republic had been formally 
proclaimed in the Chamber by M. de Lamartine, who had 
afterwards repaired to the Hotel de Ville. At the same time, 
people were shouting that the King had died suddenly. I 
endeavoured to get as far, but, though the distance was cer- 
tainly not more than half a mile, it took me more than an 
hour. At every few yards my progress was interrupted by 
barricades, the self-elected custodians of which were particu- 
larly anxious to show their authority to a man like myself, 
dressed in a coat. At last I managed to get to the corner of 
the Rues des Lombards and Saint- Martin, and just in time 
to enjoy a sight than which I have witnessed nothing more 
comic during the succeeding popular uprisings in subsequent 
years. I was just crossing, when a procession hove in sight, 
composed mainly of ragged urchins, dishevelled women, and 
riff-raff of both sexes. In their midst was an individual on 
horseback, dressed in the uniform of a general of the First 
Republic, whom they were cheering loudly. The stationary 
crowd made way for them, and mingled with the escort. The 
moment I had thrown in my lot with the latter, retreat was 
no longer possible, and in a very short time I found myself in 
the courtyard of the Hotel de Ville, and, in another minute 
or so, in the principal gallery on the first floor, where, it 
appears, some members of the Provisional Government w^ere 
already at work. I had not the remotest notion who they 
were, nor did I care to inquire, having merely come to look 
on. The work of the members of the Provisional Government 
seemed mainly to consist in consuming enormous quantities 
of charcuterie and washing them down with copious libations 
of cheap wine. The place was positively reeking with the 
smell of both, not to mention the fumes of tobacco. Every 
one was smoking his hardest. The entrance of the individual 
in uniform caused somewhat of a sensation ; a member — whom 
I had never seen before and whom I have never beheld since 



230 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

— stepped forward to ask his business. The new-comer did 
not appear to know himself ; at any rate, he stammered and 
stuttered, but his escort left him no time to betray his con- 
fusion more plainly. " C'est le citoyen gouverneur de I'Hotel 
de Ville," they shouted as with one voice ; and there and 
then the new governor was installed, though I am perfectly 
sure that not a soul of all those present knew as much as his 
name. 

Subsequent inquiries elicited the fact that the man was a 
fourth or fifth-rate singer, named Chateaurenaud, and en- 
gaged at the Opera National (formerly the Cirque Olympique) 
on the Boulevard du Temple. On that day they were having 
a dress rehearsal of a new piece in which Chateaurenaud was 
playing a military part. He had just donned his costume 
when, hearing a noise on the Boulevards, he put his head out 
of the window. The mob caught sight of him. " A general, 
a general ! " cried several urchins ; and in less time than it 
takes to tell, the theatre was invaded, and notwithstanding 
his struggles, Chateaurenaud was carried off, placed on horse- 
back, and conducted to the Hotel de Yille, where, for the 
next fortnight, he throned as governor. For, curious to re- 
late, M. de Lamartine ratified his appointment (?) on the 
morning of the 25th of February. Chateaurenaud became 
an official of the secret police during the Second Empire. I 
often saw him on horseback in the Bois de Boulogne, when 
the Emperor drove in that direction. 

I did not stay long in the Hotel de Ville, but made my 
way back to the Boulevards as best I could ; for by that time 
darkness had set in, and the mob was shouting for illumina- 
tions, and obstructing the thoroughfares everywhere. Every 
now and then one came upon a body which had been lying 
there since the morning, but they took no notice of it. 
Their principal concern seemed the suitable acknowledgment 
of the advent of the Second Republic by the bourgeoisie by 
means of coloured devices, or, in default of such, by coloured 
lamps or even candles. Woe to the houses, the inhabitants 
of which remained deaf to their summons to that effect. In 
a very few minutes every window was smashed to atoms, 
until at last a timid hand was seen to arrange a few bottles 
with candles stuck into them on the sill, and light them. 
Then they departed, to impose their will elsewhere. 

That night, after dinner, the first person of my acquaint- 
ance I met was Mery. He had been in the Chamber of 



WHY LAMARTINE MADE A REPUBLIC. 231 

Deputies from the very beginning of the proceedings ; it was 
he who solemnly assured me that the first cry of " Vive la 
Republique ! " had been uttered by M. de Lamartine. I was 
surprised at this, because I had been told that early in the 
morning the poet had paid a visit to the Duchesse d'Orleans 
to assure her of his devotion to her cause. " That may be 
so," said Mery, to whom I repeated what I had heard ; " but 
you must remember that Lamartine is always hard up, and 
closely pursued by duns. A revolution with the prospect of 
becoming president of the republic was the only means of 
staving off his creditors. He clutched at it as a last re- 
source." 

Alexandre Dumas was there also, but I have an idea that 
he would have willingly passed the sponge over that incident 
of his life, for I never could get him to talk frankly on the 
sabject. This does not mean that he would have recanted 
his republican principles, but that he was ashamed at having 
lent his countenance to such a republic as that. I fancy 
there were a great many like him. 



232 -A.N ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 



CHAPTER XI. 

The Second Eepublic — Lamartine's reason for proclaiming it — Suspects Louis- 
Napoleon of similar motives for wishing to overthrow it — Tells him to ^o 
back to England— De Persigny's account of Lcuis-Napoleon^s landing m 
France after February 24th, '48 — Providential interference on behalf of 
Louis-Napoleon — Justification of Louis-Napoleon's belief in his "star" — 
My first meeting with him — The origin of a celebrated nickname — Badin- 
guet a creation of Gavarni — Louis-Napoleon and his surroundings at the 
Hotel du Rhin — His appearance and dress — Lord Norman by 's opinion of 
his appearance — Louis-Napoleon's French — A mot of Bismarck — Cavaignac, 
Thiers, and Victor Hugo's wrong estimate of his character — Cavaignac and 
his brother Godefroi— The difference between Thiers and General Ca- 
vaignac — An elector's mot — Some of the candidates for the presidency of the 
Second Eepublic — Electioneering expenses — Lnpecuniosity of Louis-Napo- 
leon — A story in connection with it — The woman with the wooden legs — 
The salons during the Second Republic — The theatres and their skits on 
the situation — "La Propriete c'est le Vol" — France governed by the Na- 
tional — A curious list of ministers and officials of the Second Republic — 
Armand Marrast — His plans for reviving business — His receptions at the 
Palais-Bourbon as President of the Chamber of Deputies — Some of the 
guests — The Corps Diplomatique — The new deputies, their wives and 
daughters. 

I KNEW Louis-Napoleon, if not intimately, at least very 
well, for nearly a quarter of a century, and I felt myself as 
little competent to give an opinion on him on the last as on 
the first day of our acquaintance. I feel almost certain of 
one thing, though ; that, if he had had very ample means of 
his own, the Se'cond Empire would have never been. Since 
its fall I have heard and read a great deal about Louis-Napo- 
leon's unfaltering belief in his star ; I fancy it would have 
shone less brightly to him but for the dark, impenetrable 
sky of impecuniosity in which it was set. Mery said that 
Lamartine proclaimed the Second Republic as a means of 
staving off his creditors ; and the accusation was justified by 
Lamartine's own words in the Assemblee Rationale itself on 
the llth of September, 1848 : " Je declare hautement que le 
24 Fevrier k midi, je ne pensais pas a la Republique." To 
use a popular locution, the author of " L'Histoire des Giron- 
dins " suspected, perhaps, that Louis-Napoleon might take a 



THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 233 

leaf from his, the author's, book ; for the needy man, though 
perhaps not a better psychologist than most men, has a very 
comprehensive key to the motives of a great number of his 
fellow-creatures, especially if they be Frenchmen and pro- 
fessional politicians. I am speaking by the light of many 
years' observ^ation. Furthermore, the pecuniary embarrass- 
ments of Louis-Xapoleon were no secret to any one. " I 
have established a republic for money's sake," Lamartine said 
to himself ; " some one will endeavour to overthrow it for 
money's sake." I am aware that this is not a very elevated 
standard wdiereby to judge political events ; but I do not pro- 
fess to be an historian — mine is only the little huckster shop 
of history. 

It is more than probable that this was the reason why 
Lamartine told Louis-Xapoleon to go back to England, in 
their interview — a secret one — on the 2d of March, 1848. 

It was M. de Persigny who told me this many years after- 
wards. " The Prince could afford to humour De Lamartine 
in that way," he added, "for if ever a man was justified in 
believing in his star it was he. I'll tell you a story which is 
scarcely known to half a dozen men, including the Emperor 
and myself ; I am not aware of its having been told by any 
biographer. The moment we ascertained the truth of the 
news that reached us from Paris, we made for the coast, and, 
on Saturday morning, we crossed in the mail-packet. It was 
very rough, and w^e had a good shaking, so that when we got 
to Boulogne we were absolutely ' done up.' But we heard 
that a train was to start for Paris, and, as a matter of course, 
the Prince would not lose a minute. We had to walk to 
Neufchatel, about three miles distant, because there was 
something the matter with the rails, I do not know wliat. 
AYe flung ourselves into the first compartment, which already 
contained two travellers. Almost immediately we had got 
under weigh, one of these, who had looked very struck wdien 
we entered, addressed the Prince by name. He turned out to 
be Monsieur Biesta, who had paid a visit to Xapoleon during 
his imprisonment at Ham, and who immediately recognized 
him. Monsieur Biesta had just left the Due de Xemours. 
I do not know whether he was at that time a Republican, a 
Monarchist, or an Imperialist, but he was a man of honour, 
and it was thanks to him that the son of Louis-Philippe 
made his escape. The other one was the Marquis d'Arragon, 
who died about a twelvemonth afterwards. All went well 



234 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS, 

until we got to Amiens, where we had to wait a very long 
while, the train which was to have taken us on to Paris hav- 
ing just left. For once in a way the Prince got impatient. 
He who on the eve of the Coup d'Etat remained, at any rate 
outwardly, perfectly stolid, was fuming and fretting at the 
delay. One would have thought that the whole of Paris was 
waiting at the ISTorthern station to receive him with open 
arms, and to proclaim him Emperor there and then. But 
impatient or not, we had to wait, and, what was worse or bet- 
ter, the train that finally took us came to a dead stop at 
Persan, where the news reached us that the rails had been 
broken up by the insurgents at Pontoise, that a frightful ac- 
cident had happened in consequence to the train we had 
missed by a few minutes at Amiens, in which at least thirty 
lives were lost, besides a great number of wounded. But for 
the merest chance we should have been among the passen- 
gers. Was I right in saying that the Prince was justified in 
believing in his star ? " 

I did not meet with Louis-Napoleon until he was a candi- 
date for the presidency of the Second Republic, and while he 
was staying at the Hotel du Ehin in the Place Vendome. Of 
course, I had heard a great deal about him, but my inform- 
ants, to a man, were English. While the latter were almost 
unanimous in predicting Louis-Napoleon's eventual advent 
to the throne, the French, though in no way denying the in- 
fluence of the Napoleonic legend, were apt to shrug their 
shoulders more or less contemptuously at the pretensions of 
Hortense's son ; for few ever designated him by any other 
name, until later on, when the nickname of " Badinguet " 
began to be on every one's lips. Consequently, I was anxious 
to catch a glimpse of him ; but before noting the impressions 
produced by that first meeting, I will devote a few lines to the 
origin of that celebrated sobriquet. 

Personally, I never heard it in connection with Louis- 
Napoleon until his betrothal to Mdlle. Eugenie de Montijo 
became common " talk ; " but I had heard and seen it in 
print a good many years before, and even as late as '48. 
There was, however, not the slightest attempt at that time 
to couple it with the person of the future Emperor. Three 
solutions have made the round of the papers at various 
times : (1) that it was the name of the stonemason or brick- 
layer who lent Louis-Napoleon his clothes to facilitate his 
escape from Ham in June, 1845 ; (2) that it was the name of 



THE ORIGIN OF AX HISTORIC NICKNAME. 935 

the soldier wlio was Tvoimded by the Prince on the 5th of 
August, 1840, at Boulogne, when the latter fired on Captain 
Col-Puygcllier ; (3) that about the latter end of the forties a 
pipe-manufacturer introduced a pipe, the head of which re- 
sembled that of Louis-Xapoleon, and that the pipemaker's 
name was Badinguet. 

The latter solution may be dismissed at once as utterly 
without foundation. With regard to that having reference 
to the stonemason, no stonemason lent Louis-Napoleon his 
clothes. The disguise was provided by Dr. Conneau from a 
source which has never been revealed. There was, moreover, 
no stonemason of the name of Badinguet at Ham, and, when 
Louis-Xapoleon crossed the drawbridge of the castle, his face 
partially hidden by a board he was carrying on his shoulder, 
a workman, who mistook him for one of his mates, exclaimed, 
" Hullo, there goes Bertoux." Bertoux, not Badinguet. 

The name of the soldier wounded by Louis-Xapoleon was 
Geoffroy ; he was a grenadier, decorated on the battle-field ; 
and shortly after Xapoleon's accession to the throne, he 
granted him a pension. There can be no possible mistake 
about the name, seeing that it was attested at the trial subse- 
quent to the fiasco before the Court of Peers. 

The real fact is this : Gavarni, like Balzac, invented many 
names, suggested in many instances by those of their friends 
and acquaintances, or sometimes merely altered from those 
they had seen on signboards. The great caricaturist had a 
friend in the Departement des Landes named Badingo ; about 
'38 he began his sketches of students and their companions 
("Etudiants et Etudiantes'-), and in one of them a medical 
student shows his lady-love an articulated skeleton. 

" Look at this," says the former ; " this is Eugenie, the 
former sweetheart of Badinguet — that tall, fair girrv\'ho was 
so fond of meringues. He has had her mounted for thirty- 
six francs." 

The connection is very obvious ; it only wanted one single 
wag to remember the skit when Xapoleon became engaged to 
Eugenie de Montijo. He set the ball rolling, and the rest 
followed as a matter of course. 

At the same time, Gavarni had not been half as original, 
as he imagined, in the invention of the name. Badinguet 
was a character in a one-act farce entitled '' Le Mobilier de 
Rosine," played for the first time in 18'28, at the Theatre 
Montansier ; and there is a piece of an earlier date even, in 



236 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

which Grassot played a character by the name of Badinguet. 
In 1848, there was a kind of Jules Vernesque piece at the 
Porte Saint-Martin, in which Badinguet, a Parisian shop- 
keeper, starts with his wife Euphemie for some distant isl- 
and. 

To return to Louis-Xapoleon at the Hotel du Ehin, and 
my first glimpse of him. I must own that I was disap})oint- 
ed with it. Though I had not the slightest ground for ex- 
pecting to see a fine man, I did not expect to see so utterly 
an insignificant one, and badly dressed in the bargain. On 
the evening in question, he wore a brown coat of a peculiar 
colour, a green plush waistcoat, and a pair of yellowish 
trousers, the like of which I have never seen on the legs of 
any one off the stage. And yet Lord Xormanby, and a good 
many more who have said that he looked every inch a king, 
were not altogether wrong. There was a certain gracefulness 
about him which owed absolutely nothing either to his tailor, 
his barber, or his bootmaker. " The gracefulness of awk- 
wardness " sounds remarkably like an Irish bull, yet I can 
find no other term to describe his gait and carriage. Louis- 
Napoleon's legs seemed to have been an after-thought of his 
Creator — they were too short for his body, and his head ap- 
peared constantly bent down, to supervise their motion ; con- 
sequently, their owner was always at a disadvantage when 
compelled to make use of them. But when standing still, or 
on horseback, there was an indescribable something about 
the man which at once commanded attention. I am not 
overlooking the fact that, on the occasion of our first meet- 
ing, my curiosity had been aroused ; but I doubt whether 
any one, endowed with the smallest power of observation, 
though utterly ignorant with regard to his previous history, 
and equally sceptical with regard to his future destiny, could 
have been in his company for any length of time without be- 
ing struck with his a]:)pearance. 

When I entered the apartment on the evening in ques- 
tion, Louis-!N"apoleon was leaning in his favourite attitude 
against the mantelpiece, smoking the scarcely ever absent 
cigarette, and pulling at the heavy brown moustache, the 
ends of which in those days were not waxed into points as 
they were later on. There was not the remotest likeness to 
any portrait of the Bonaparte family I had ever seen. He 
wore his thin, lank hair much longer than he did afterwards. 
The most startling features were decidedly the aquiline 



LOUIS-NAPOLEON'S FRENCH. 23T 

nose and the eyes ; the latter, of a greyish-bhie, were com- 
paratively small and somewhat almond-shaped, but, except at 
rare intervals, there was an impenetrable look, which made it 
exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to read their owner's 
thoughts by them. If they w^ere " the windows of his soul," 
their blinds were constantly down. The " I am pleased to 
see you, sir," with which he welcomed me, holding out his 
hand at the same time, was the English of an educated 
German who had taken great pains to get the right accent 
and pronunciation, without, however, completely succeeding ; 
and when I heard him speak French, I detected at once his 
constant struggle with the same difficulties. The struggle 
lasted till the very end of his life, though, by dint of speak- 
ing very slowly, he overcame tliem to a marvellous extent. 
But the moment he became in any way excited, the/'s and 
the fs and the p^s were always trying to oust the i-'s, the ^'s 
and the b's from their newly-acquired positions, and often 
gained a momentary victory. There is an amusing story to 
that effect, in connection with Xapoleon's first interview 
with Bismarck. I will not vouch for its truth, but, on the 
face of it, it sounds blunt enough to be genuine. The Em- 
peror was complimenting the German statesman on his. 
French. 

" M. de Bismarck, I have never heard a German speak 
French as you do," said Xapoleon. 

" Will vou allow me to return the compliment, sire ? " 

" Certainly." 

" I have never heard a Frenchman speak French as vou 
do." * 

When Prince Louis-Xapoleon held out his hand and I 
looked into his face, I felt almost tempted to put him dow^n 
as an opium-eater. Ten minutes afterwards, I felt convinced 
that, to use a metaphor, he himself was the drug, and that 
every one with whom he came in contact was bound to yield 
to its influence. When I came away that evening, I could 
have given Cavaignac, Thiers, Lamartine, Hugo, and the 
rest, who wanted to make a cat's-paw of him, a timely warn- 
ing, if they w^ould have condescended to listen to, and profit 

* In the documents relatlncr to the affair at Strasbursf, there is the report to 
Louis-Philippe by an oiiic-er in the 4rjth reariment of the line, named Plei.g'n^, 
in which the latter, borrowino' the process of Balzac as applied to the Frcndi of 
the^ Baron de Nucintjen, credits Louis- Xapoleon with the following phrase: 
'' Fouaettstecore dt- ChuiUet ; fous tefez etre tin prqfe^che vous i'^cort'."— Editok. 



238 ^N ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

by it, which I am certain they would not have done. Strange 
as it may seem, every one of these men, and, with the excep- 
tion of one, all undoubtedly clever, thought Louis-Xapoleon 
either an imbecile or a secret drunkard. And, what is 
more, they endeavoured to propagate their opinion through- 
out the length and breadth, not only of France, but of 
Europe. 

As usual, the one who was really the greatest nonentity 
among the latter was most lavish in his contempt. I am 
alluding to General Cavaignac The nobodies who have 
governed or misgoverned France since the Fall of Sedan 
were, from an intellectual point of view, eagles compared to 
that surly and bumptious drill-sergeant, who had nothing, 
absolutely nothing, to recommend him for the elevated posi- 
tion he coveted. He was the least among all those brilliant 
African soldiers whose names and prowess were on every 
one's lips ; he had really been made a hero of, at so much 
per line, by the staff of the National, where his brother 
Godefroy wielded unlimited power. He w^as all buckram ; 
and, in the very heart of Paris, and in the midst of that 
republic whose fiercest watchword, whose loudest cry, was 
"equality," he treated partisans and opponents alike, as he 
would have treated a batch of refractory Arabs in a distant 
province of that newly-conquered xifrican soil. He disliked 
every one who did not wear a uniform, and assumed a critical 
attitude towards every one who did. His republicanism was 
probably as sincere as that of Thiers — it meant " La Repu- 
blique c'est moi : " with this difference, that Thiers was ami- 
able, witty, and charming, though treacherous, and that 
Cavaignac was the very reverse. His honesty was beyond 
suspicion ; that is, he felt convinced that he was the only 
possible saviour of France : but it was impaired by his equally 
sincere conviction that bribery and coercion — of cajoling he 
would have none — were admissible, nay, incumbent to attain 
that end. " Thiers, c'est la republique en ecureuil, Cavai- 
gnac c'est la republique en ours mal leche," said a witty 
journalist. He and Louis-Xapoleon were virtually the two 
men who were contending for the presidential chair, and the 
chances of Cavaignac may be judged by the conclusion of 
the verbal report of one of Lamoriciere's emissaries, who 
canvassed one of the departments. 

" ' The thing might be feasible,' said an elector, ' if your 
general's name was Genevieve de Brabant, or that of one of 



HIS RIVALS FOR THE PRESIDENTSHIP. 239 

the four sons of Aymon.* But his name is simply Cavaignac 
— Cavaignac, and that's all. I prefer Napoleon ; at any rate, 
there is a ring about that name.' And I am afraid that 
eleven-twelfths of the electors are of the same opinion." 

As for Ledru RoUin, Raspail, Changarnier, and even La- 
martine and the Prince de Joinville, some of whom were candi- 
dates against their will, they were out of the running from the 
very start, though, curiously enough, the son of the monarch 
Avhom the republic had driven from the throne obtained 
more votes than the man who had proclaimed that republic. 
These votes were altogether discarded as unconstitutional, 
though one really fails to see why one member of a preceding 
dynasty should have been held to be more eligible than 
another. Be this as it may, the votes polled by the sailor 
prince amounted to over twenty-three thousand, showing 
that he enjoyed a certain measure of popularity. It is doubt- 
ful whether the Due d'Aumale or the Due de Nemours would 
have obtained a fifth of that number. As I have already said, 
the latter was disliked by his father's opponents for his sus- 
pected legitimist tendencies, and tacitly blamed by some of 
the partisans of the Orleanist regime for his lack of resistance 
on the 24th of February ; the former's submission " to the 
will of the nation," as embodied in a manifesto " to the in- 
habitants of Algeria," provoked no enthusiasm either among 
friends or foes.f Perhaps public rumour was not altogether 
wrong, when it averred that the D'Orleans w^ere too tight- 
fisted to spend their money in electioneering literature. The 
expense involved in that item was a terrible obstacle to Louis- 
Napoleon and his few faithful henchmen ; for, though the 
Napoleonic idea was pervading all classes of society, there 
was, correctly speaking, no Bonapartist party to shape it for 
the practical purposes of the moment. The Napoleonic idea 
was a fond remembrance of France's glorious past, rather 
than a hope of its renewal in the future. Even the greatest 
number of the most ardent worshippers of that marvellous 
soldier of fortune, doubted whether his nephew was suffi- 
ciently popular to obtain an appreciable following, and those 
who did not doubt were mostly poor. While Dufaure and 

* The four knights of a Carlovingian legend, who were mounted on one 
horse named Bayard. — Editor. 

+ During the sacking of the Tail erics, the mob ruthlessly destroyed the 
busts and pictures of every living son of Louis-Philippe, with the exception of 
those of the Prince de Joinville.— Editor. 



240 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Lamoriciere were scattering money broadcast, and using 
pressure of the most arbitrary kind, in order to insure Cavai- 
gnac's success, Louis-Xapoleon and his knot of partisans were 
absohitely reduced to their own personal resources. Miss 
Howard — afterwards Comtesse de Beauregard — and Princesse 
Mathilde had given all they could ; a small loan was obtained 
from M. Fould ; and some comparatively scanty supplies had 
been forthcoming from England — it was said at the time, 
with how much truth I know not, that Lords Palmerston and 
Malmesbury had contributed : but the exchequer was virtu- 
ally empty. A stray remittance of a few thousand francs, 
from an altogether unexpected quarter, and most frequently 
from an anonymous sender, arrived now and then ; but it 
was what the Germans call " a drop of water in a very hot 
frying-pan ; " it barely sufficed to stop a hole. Money was 
imperatively wanted for the printing of millions upon millions 
of handbills, thousands and thousands of posters, and their 
distribution ; for the expenses of canvassers, electioneering 
agents, and so forth. The money went to the latter, the rest 
was obtained on credit. Prince Louis, confident of success, 
emptied his pockets of the last five-franc pieces ; when he 
had no more, he promised to pay. He was as badly oif as 
his famous uncle before the turn of fortune came. 

In connection with this dire impecuniosit}^, I remember a 
story for the truth of which I can vouch as if I had had it 
from Louis-^apoleon's own lips. In front of Siraudin's con- 
fectioner's shop at the angle of the Boulevard des Capucines 
and the Eue de la Paix, there sits an old woman with two 
wooden legs. About '48, when she was very pretty and 
dressed with a certain coquettishness, she was already there, 
though sitting a little higher up, in front of the wall of the 
Ministry for Foreign Affairs, which has since made room for 
the handsome establishment of Giroux. Behind her, on the 
wall, Avere suspended for sale some cheap and not very ar- 
tistically executed reproductions of Fragonard, " Le Coucher 
de la Mariee," etc., all of which would fetch high prices 
now ; also songs, the tunes of which she played with great 
taste on her violin. It was reported that she had been killed 
during the attack on the ministry, but to people's great sur- 
prise she reappeared a few days afterwards. Prince Louis, 
who was staying at the Place Vendome, then used to take a 
short cut by the Rue Xeuve des Capucines to the Boulevards, 
and it seems that he never passed her without giving her 



PARIS UNDER THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 241 

something. In a few weeks she came to look upon his con- 
tributions as a certain part of her income. She knew who 
he was, and, curiously enough, seemed to be aware not only 
of his political preoccupations, but of his pecuniary embar- 
rassments. I am unable to say whether she was in sympathy 
with the former, but she was evidently concerned about the 
latter ; for, one evening, after thanking Louis-Napoleon, she 
added, " Monseigneur, je voudrais vous dire un mot." 

" Parlez, madame." 

" On me dit que vous etes fort gene dans ce moment. 
J'ai trois billets de mille francs chez moi, qui ne font rien. 
Voulez-vous me permettre de vous les oifrir ; vous me les 
rendrez quand vous serez empereur." 

Prince Louis did not accept them, but he never forgot a 
kindness, and when he did become Emperor, he offered her 
a small annuity. The answer was characteristic of her inde- 
pendence. " Dites a I'empereur qu'il est bien bon de se rap- 
peler de moi, mais je ne puis pas accepter son offre. S'il 
avait accepte mon argent, je ne dis pas, maintenant, non." 
And while I am writing these notes, she still sits in her usual 
place, though I have heard it said more than once that she 
is the owner of one or two houses in the Avenue de I'Opera, 
and that she gave a considerable marriage portion to her 
daughter, who has remained ignorant of the sources of her 
mother's income, who was educated in the country, and has 
never been to Paris. One of the conditions of her marriage 
was that she should emigrate to Australia. For the latter 
part of the story, I will, however, not vouch. 

During the months of October and November, '48, I saw 
Prince Louis at least a dozen times, though only once away 
from his own apartments. There was really "nowhere to 
go," for most of the salons had closed their doors, and those 
""which remained open were invaded by political partisans of 
all shades. Conversation, except on one topic, there was 
little or none. Social entertainments were scarcely to be 
thought of after the bloody disorders in June : Paris trade 
suffered in consequence, and the whole of the shop-keeping 
element, which virtually constituted the greater part of the 
Garde Xationale, regretted the fall of the Orleans dynasty to 
which it had so materially contributed. After these disor- 
ders in June, the troops bivouacked for a whole month on 
the Boulevards ; on the Boulevard du Temple with its seven 
, theatres ; on the Boulevard Poissonniere, almost in front of 
17 



242 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

the Gymnase ; on the Boulevard Montmartre, in front of the 
Yarietes; on the Place de la Bourse, in front of the Vaude- 
ville. The new masters did not care to be held up to ridi- 
cule ; they insinuated, rather than asserted, that the insults 
levelled from the stage had contributed to the insurrection ; 
and seeing that the bourgeoisie, very contrite already, did 
not care to hear " the praise of the saviours of the country " 
by command, they deserted the play-houses and kept their 
money in their pockets. The Constituent Assembly was 
compelled to grant the managers an indemnity; but, as it 
could not keep the soldiers there for ever, and as it cared still 
less to vote funds to its enemies while its supporters were 
clamouring for every cent of it, the strict supervision gradu- 
ally relaxed. The first to take advantage of this altered state 
of things was Clairville, with his " La Propriete c'est le Vol " 
(November 28, '48), a skit on the celebrated phrase of Proud- 
hon. It is very doubtful whether the latter had uttered it in 
the sense with Avhich the playwright invested it ; but fear is 
proverbially illogical, and every one in Paris ran to see the 
piece, trusting probably that it might produce a salutary 
effect on those who intended to take the philosopher's axiom 
literally. 

" La Propriete c'est le Vol " was described on the bills as 
" a socialistic extravaganza in three acts and seven tableaux." 
The scene of the first tableau represents the garden of Eden. 
The Serpent, who is the Evil Spirit, declares war at once 
upon Adam, who embodies the principle of Property. The 
Serpent was a deliberate caricature of Proudhon with his 
large spectacles. 

In the subsequent tableaux, Adam, by a kind of metem- 
psychosis, had been changed into Bonichon, an owner of 
house property in the Paris of the nineteenth century. The 
Serpent, though still wearing his spectacles, had been equally 
transformed into a modern opponent of all property. We 
are in February, '48. Bonichon and some of his fellow-bour- 
geois are feasting in honor of the proposed measures of reform, 
when they are scared out of their wits by the appearance of 
the Serpent, who informs them that the Republic has sidled 
up to Reform, managed to hide itself beneath its cloak, and 
been proclaimed. The next scene brings us to the year 1852 
(four years in advance of the period), when the right of 
every one to live by the toil of his hands has become law. 
Bonichon is being harassed and persecuted by a crowd of 



A SATIRICAL PLAY. 243 

handicraftsmen and others, who insist on working for him 
whether he likes it or not. The glazier smashes his windows, 
in order to compel him to have new panes put in. The paper- 
hanger tears the paper oft' his walls on the same principle. The 
hackney coachman flings Bonichon into his cab, takes him 
for a four hours' drive, and charges accordingly. A dentist 
imitates the tactics of Peter the Great with his courtiers, 
forces him into a chair and operates upon his grinders, though, 
unlike Peter, he claims the full fee. A dozen or so of modistes 
and dressmakers invade his apartments with double the num- 
ber of gowns for Madame Eve Bonichon, who, the reverse of 
her husband, does not object to this violent ajDpeal for her 
custom. Perhaps Madame Octave, a charming woman who 
played the part, did well to submit, because during the first 
tableau, the audience, though by no means squeamish, had 
come to the conclusion that Madame Eve would be all the 
better for a little more clothing. 

And so the piece goes on. The first performance took 
place twelve days before the presidential election, when 
Cavaignac was still at the head of affairs. Xotwithstanding 
his energetic suppression of the disorders in June, every one, 
with the exception of the journalistic swashbucklers of Le 
National^ hoped to get rid of him ; and a song aimed at him 
cruelly dissected his utter insignificance from a mental, 
mora], and political point of view. When Louis-Xapoleon 
gained the day, the song was changed for a more kindly 
one. 

It is no exaggeration to say that during those days France 
was absolutely governed by the Kational. I made a list, by 
no means complete, at the time, of the various appointments 
and high places that had fallen to the members of the staff 
and those connected with it financially and otherwise. I 
have kept it, and transcribe it here with scarcely any com- 
ment. 

Armand Marrast, the editor, became a member of the 
Provisional Government, Mayor of Paris, and subsequently 
President of the National Assembly. 

Marrast (No. 2) became Procureur- General at Pan. 

Marrast (No. 3), who had been a captain of light horse 
during the reign of Louis-Philippe, was given a colonelcy 
unattached. 

Marrast (No. 4) became Vice - Principal of the Lycee 
Corneille. 



244: 



AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 



Bastide, one of the staff, became Minister for Foreign 
A "PFsirs 

Vaiilabelle, one of the staff, became Minister of Public 

Education. . , , -at- • ^ 

Goudchaux, the banker of the ]\ational, became Minister 

of Finances. ^ , ^r- - l 

Recurt, the cliief physician to the staff, became Mmistei 
of the Interior and subsequently Minister of Pubhc Works 
(Presidentof the Board of Works). ,,. . , ^ ^ ,,. 

Trelat, another physician, became Minister of Public 
VV orks 

Marie, the solicitor to the National, became a member 
of the Provisional Government, a member of the Ex- 
ecutive Committee, and subsequently Minister of Jus- 

Genin, one of the staff, became chief of the literary de- 
partment at the Ministry of Public Education. 

Charras, one of the staff, became Under-Secretary of btate, 
at the Ministry for War. t^ . , ^ 

Degouve-Denuncques, one of the staff, became Pretect ot 
the Department of the Somme. 

Buchez, third physician and an occasional contributor, be- 
came Deputy Mayor of Paris and subsequently President of 
the Assembly up to the 15th of May ( when he had to 
make room for M. Armand Marrast himself). As will be 
seen, within a month of the republicans' advent to power, 
M. Buchez had been raised to one of the highest functions 
in the State, though absolutely devoid of any political or 
parliamentary talent, as was shown later on by his " Histoire 
Parlementaire de la Revolution Fran9aise," an utterly com- 
monplace production. 

Dussart, one of the staff, became Prefect of the beme- 

Inferieure. , . „ ^ , /. .-. 

Adam, one of the staff, became Chief Secretary of the 
Prefecture of the Seine. . . 

Sain de Bois-le Comte, one of the staff, became minister 
plenipotentiary at Turin. . . 

Felicien Mallefille, one of the staff, became minister 
plenipotentiarv at Lisbon. , . 

Anselme Petetin, one of the staff, became minister pleni- 
potentiary at Hanover. 

Auguste Petetin (his brother), one of the staff, became 
Prefect of the Department of the Cote-d'Or. 



A CURIOUS LIST OF MINISTERS. 215 

Frederic Lacroix, one of the staff, became chief secre- 
tar}^ for civil affairs in Algeria. 

Hetzel, one of the staff, became chief secretary to the 
Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

Eo asset, one of the staff, became Prefect of the Depart- 
ment of the Loire. 

Diiclerc, shorthand reporter, became for a little while 
Minister of Finances. 

Pagnerre, publisher of the National^ and bookseller, be- 
came a mayor, a member of the Provisional Government, 
a member of the Executive Committee, and finally Director 
of the Comptoir d'Escompte. 

Achille Gregoire, the printer of the National^ became 
Prefect of the Department of the Upper-Saone. 

Clement Thomas, called the Constable of the National,, 
became the Commander-in-chief of the National Guard of 
the Seine. 

There are a few score more, friends and allies, such as 
Lalanne, who was made director of the national w^orkshops ; 
Levrault, who was sent to Naples as minister jDlenipoten- 
tiary ; Carette, who became Civil- Chief at Constantine ; Car- 
teron, who was appointed keeper of the national archives, etc. 

As a matter of course, all these adventurers had revolving 
around them a number of satellites, as eager as the former to 
reap the fruits of the situation. Most of them, like the cat 
of Heine's epigram, had to devour their steak raw ; they did 
not know how to cook it. Ministers, prefects, and high dig- 
nitaries of State as they were, they felt awkward in the so- 
ciety of those to whom no illusion was possible with regard 
to their origin and that of their political fortunes. 

They haunted, therefore, by preference, the less well fre- 
quented restaurants and cafes, the wings of the minor 
theatres, on the pretext that they were the elect of the peo- 
ple, and that the people were their fittest companions. Their 
erstwhile leader and chiet scorned to stoop to such tricks. 
He was an educated man, with a thick veneer of the gentle- 
man about him, which, however, did not prevent him from 
being one of the two most arrant snobs I have met anywhere. 
I advisedly say anywhere, for France herself does not pro- 
duce that objectionable genus to any appreciable extent. 
You may find a good many cads, you will find comparatively 
few snobs. Compared to Armand Marrast, Eugene Sue was 
nowhere as a snob. He was a thickset man with a rubicund 



246 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

face, with a mass of grey woolly hair and a kind of stubbly, 
small moustache. His manners were supposed to be mod- 
elled on those of the nobles of the old regime ; said manners 
mainly consisting of swaggering impudence to those whom 
he considered his equals, and freezing insolence to those he 
deemed his inferiors. The latter, I need not say, were by far 
the most numerous. He who bellowed most loudly that 
birth should carry no privilege, never forgot to remind his 
hearers, by deeds, if not by words, that he was of noble 
descent. " Si sa famille etait noble, sa mere s'est surement 
endormie dans I'antichambre un jour qu'un valet-de-chambre 
entreprenant etait trop pers," said the Marquis d'Arragon 
one evening.* He felt greatly flattered at the caricaturists of 
the day representing him in the court dress of Louis XVI. 's 
reign, though to most people he looked like a " marquis de 
quatre sous." f 

He professed to be very fond of antique furniture and 
decorations, and this fondness was the main cause of his 
ousting his formei subaltern, Buchez, from the presidential 
chair of the Assembly, for, shortly before the revolution of 
'48, the official residence of that functionary had been put in 
thorough repair, its magnificent furniture had been restored, 
etc. 

The depression of business inspired M. Armand ^larrast 
with the happy thought of giving some entertainments in 
the hope of reviving it. During the Third Eepublic, though 
I had ceased to live in France permanently, I have seen a 
good many motley gatlierings at the Elysee-Bourbou, and at 
the H6tel-de-Ville, especially in M. Grevy's time, though 
Mac-Mahon's presidency oifered some diverting specimens 
also; but I have never seen anything like the social functions 
at the Palais-Bourbon during the months of September, Oc- 
tober, and November, 1848. They were absolutely the fes- 
tive scenes of Paul cle Kock on a large scale, amidst Louis 
XIV. and Louis XV. furniture, instead of the bourgeois 
mahogany, and with an exquisitely artistic background, in- 
stead of the commonplace paperhangings of the lower mid- 
dle-class dwellings. The corps diplomatique was virtually 



* The remark was not original. The Marquise d'Esprem^nil said it of her- 
self when she saw her son join the Revolution of '89. — Editor. 

t The peripatetic vendoi's of songs, dressed as nobles, who up till '60 were 
frequently singing their compositions in the street. — Editor. 



A BALL AT THE PALAIS-BOURBON. 247 

on the horns of a dilemma. After the February revolution, 
the shock of which was felt throughout the whole of Europe, 
and caused most of the sovereigns to shake on their thrones, 
it had stood by M. de Lamartine, and even by his successor at 
the French Foreign Office, M. Bastide, if not with enthusi- 
asm, at least with a kind of complacency. The republic pro- 
claimed by tlie former, might, after all, contain elements of 
vitality. The terrible disorders in June tended to shake this 
reluctant confidence ; still, there was but little change in the 
ambassadors' outward attitude, until it became too evident 
that, unless a strong dictator should intervene, mob rule was 
dangerously nigh. Then the corps diplomatique began to 
hold aloof. Of course there were exceptions, such as, for 
instance, Mr. Richard Eush, the minister of the United 
States, who had been the first to congratulate the Provisional 
Government, and the various representatives of the South- 
American republics ; but even the latter could scarcely refrain 
from expressing their astonishment at the strange company 
in which they found themselves. The women w^ere perhaps 
the most remarkable, as women generally are w^hen out of 
their element. The greater part had probably never been 
in a drawling-room before, and, notwithstanding M. Taiue's 
subsequently expressed dictum about the facility with which 
a Parisien grisette, shopwoman, or lady's-maid may be trans- 
formed at a few moments into a semblance of a grande dame^ 
these very petites bourgeoises and their demoiselles made a 
very indifferent show. Perhaps the grisette, shopwoman, or 
lady's-maid would have acquitted herself better. Her natural 
taste, sharpened by constant contact with her social superiors, 
might have made up for the slender resources of her ward- 
robe ; and, as the French say, " one forgives much in the 
way of solecism to the prettily dressed woman." As it was, 
the female section of M. Marrast's guests could advance no 
valid plea for mercy on that score. The daughters looked 
limp with their choregraphic exertions : the emblem of inno- 
cence, " la sainte mousseline," as Ambroise Thomas called it 
afterwards, hung in vague, undefined folds on angular figures, 
perhaps because the starch necessary to it had been appropri- 
ated by the matrons. The latter were rigid to a degree, and 
looked daggers at their spouses and their friends at the slight- 
est attempt to stir them to animation. " Fais done danser 
ma vieille," was the consecrated formula with which a not 
very eager cavalier was dragged to the seat where said 



248 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

" vieille " was reposing in all the majesty of her unaccus- 
tomed finery, considembly impaired in the wearer's transit 
on foot from her domicile at Montrouge or Menilmontant to 
the banks of the Seine ; for the Aveather that year was almost 
tropical, even in the autumn, and consequently the cab had 
been dispensed with. It would appear, from a remark I over- 
heard, that Jehu, in the way of business, preferred as fares 
the partisans of and adherents to the fallen regimes, even of 
the latest one. Said a portly dame to her neighbour, allud- 
ing to the cabman, " II a absolument refuse de nous prendre. 
II a dit qu'il etait dans I'opposition, et qu'il ne voulait pas 
trahir ses principes a moins de dix francs. Dix francs, ma 
chere, nous aurions pu souper chez nous, et sans compter les 
frais de toilette et de blanchissage. Quant a I'honneur d'etre 
ici, 9a ne compte pas pour grand'chose, vu que tout le quar- 
tier y est; nous demeurons a Batignolles, et il a fallu de- 
scendre en ville ce matin pour avoir une paire de gants 
blancs. Chez nous, partout la meme reponse : ' Des gants 
blancs, madame, nous n'en avons plus. Presque toutes les 
dames du quartier vont au Palais- Bourton ce soir, et depuis 
hier il nous reste que des petites pointures (sizes), des sept et 
des sept et demies.' " ^ 

As for the " elu du peuple souverain," when he had failed 
to draw his " vieille " into the mazy dance, and been snubbed 
for his pains in the bargain, he returned to his fellow-depu- 
ties, many of whom might be easily recognized by the golden- 
fringed tricolour rosette in their buttonholes, though some 
had merely kept it in their pockets. The " elu du peuple " 
did not daiQce himself. Perhaps the most curious group was 
that of the young attaches and clerks of the Foreign Office 
who had come to enjoy themselves, who, even at that time, 
were nearly all of good birth, and who, to use a colloquial 
expression, looked not unlike brass knockers on a pigsty. * 
This was the society Louis-Napoleon was to sweep away with 
the aid of men, some of whom I have endeavoured to sketch 
in subsequent notes. I would fain say a few words of a 
" shipwrecked one," of the preceding dynasty, whose ac- 
quaintance I did not make until the vessel he had steered so 
long had foundered, and of the self-constituted pilot of the 
interim regime. I am alluding to MM. Guizot and de La- 
martine. 



GUIZOT, LAMARTINE, AND BERANGER. 249 



CHAPTER XII. 

Guizot, Laraartine, and Beranger — Public opinion at sea with regard to the real 
Guizot — People fail to see the real man behind the politician — Guizot re- 
grets this false conception — " 1 have not the courage to be unpopular" — A 
tilt at Thiers — My first meeting witli him — A picture and the story con- 
nected with it — M. Guizot " at home " — His apartment — The company — M. 
Guizot on '' the Spanish marriages" — His indictment against Lord Palmer- 
ston — An incident in connection with Napoleon^s tomb at the Invalides — 
Nicolas I. and ISIapoleon — My subsequent intimacy with M. Guizot — Guizot 
as a father — His correspondence with his daughters — A story of Henry 
Murger and Marguerite Thuillier — M. Guizot makes up his mind not to live 
in Paris any longer — M. Guizot on " natural scenery " — Never saw the sea 
until he was over fifty — Why M. Guizot did not like the country ; why M. 
Thiers did not like it — Thiers the only man at whom Guizot' tilted — M. 
Guizot died poor — M. de Lamartine\s poverty did not inspire the same re- 
spect — Lamartine's impecuniosity — My only visit to Lamartine's house — 
Du Jellaby dore — With a difference — All the stories and anecdotes about 
M, de Lamartine relate to his improvidence and impecuniosity — Ten times 
worse in that respect than Balzac — M. Guizot's literary productions and M. 
de Lamartine's— The national subscription raised for the latter — How he 
anticipates some of the money — Beranger — My first acquaintance with him 
— Beranger's verdict on the Second Republic — Beranger's constant fiittings 
— Dislikes popularity — The true story of Beranger and Mdlle. Judith 
Frere. 

That sentence of Louis-Philippe to Lord , quoted 

elsewhere : " Guizot is so terribl}^ respectable ; I am afraid 
there is a mistake either about his nationality or his respecta- 
bility, for they are badly matched," reflected the opinion of 
the majority of Frenchmen with regard to the eminent 
statesman. The historian w^ho was supposed to know Crom- 
well and Washington as well as if he had lived with them, was 
credited at last with being a stern rigid Puritan in private 
life like the first, impatient of contradiction like the second — 
in short, a kind of walking copy-book moral, who never un- 
bent, whose slightest actions were intended by him to convey 
a lesson to the rest of mankind. L'nable to devote much 
time to her during the week, Guizot was in the habit of 
taking his mother for a stroll in the Park of St. Cloud on 
Sundays. The French, who are never tired of shouting, 
" Oh, ma m^re ! oh, ma m^re ! " resented such small atten- 



250 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

tions on the part of the son, because, they maintained, they 
were meant as exhibitions. Even such a philosopher as 
Ernest Eenan failed to see that there were two dissimilar 
men in Guizot, the Guizot of public life and the Guizot of 
home life ; that, behind the imperious, haughty, battlesome 
oratoi of the Chamber, with his almost marble mask, there 
was a tender and loving heart, capable of the most deep- 
seated devotion ; that the cares of State once thrown off, the 
supercilious stare melted like ice beneath the sun of spring 
into a prepossessing smile, captivating every one with whom 
he came in contact. 

Guizot regretted this erroneous conception the world had 
formed of his character. " But what can I do ? " he asked. 
" In reality, I haven't the courage to be unpopular any more 
than other people ; but neither have I the courage to prance 
about in my own drawing-room as if I were on Avires " — this 
was a slight slap at M. Thiers, — " nor can I write on subjects 
with which I have no sympathy " — that was a second, — " and 
I should cut but a sorry figure on horseback" — that was a 
third ; — " consequently people who, I am sure, wish me well, 
but who will not come and see me at home, hold me up as a 
misanthrope, while I know that I am nothing of the kind." 

With this he took from his table an article by M. Eenan 
on the first volume of his " Memoires," an article couched in 
the most flattering terms, but giving the most conventional 
portrait of the author himself. " Why doesn't he come and 
see me? He would soon find that I am not the solitary, 
tragic, buckram figure that has already become legendary, 
and which, like most legendary figures, is absolutely false." 

This conversation — or rather monologue, for I was care- 
ful not to interrupt him — took place in the early part of the 
Second Empire, in the house in the Eue de la Ville-Leveque 
he occupied for five and twenty years, and until 18G0. The 
Coup d'Etat had irretrievably shattered Guizot's political 
career. It had destroyed whatever hopes may have remained 
after the flight of Louis-Philippe. Consequently Guizot's 
proper place is among the men of that reign ; the reason why 
I insert him here is because my acquaintance with him only 
began after his disappearance from public life. 

It occurred in this way. Oue evening, after dinner at M. 
de Morny's, we were talking about pictures, and especially 
about those of the Spanish school, when our host turned to 
me. " Have you ever seen ' the Virgin ' belonging to M. 



GUIZOT "AT HOME." 251 

Guizot ? " he asked. I told him I had not. " Then go and 
see it," he said. " It is one of the finest sjiecimens of its 
kind I ever saw, I might say the finest." Next day I asked 
permission of M. Guizot to come and see it, and, ahnost by 
return of post, I received an invitation for the following 
Thursday night to one of his " at homes." 

Until then I had never met M. Guizot, except at one of 
his ministerial soirees under the preceding dynasty. The 
apartment offered nothing very striking : the furniture was 
of the ordinary kind to be found in almost every bourgeois 
drawing-room, with this difference — that it was considerably 
shabbier ; for Guizot was poor all his life. The man who had 
said to the nation, " Enrichissez vous, enrichissez vous," had 
never acted upon the advice himself. I know for a fact that, 
while he was in power, he Avas asked to appoint to the post 
of receiver-general of the Gironde one of the richest finan- 
ciers in France, who had expressed the intention to share the 
magnificent benefits of the appointment with him. M. Guizot 
simply and steadfastly refused to do anything of the kind. 

On the evening in question, a lamp with a reflector was 
placed in front of the picture I had come to see, probably in 
my honour. M. de Morny had not exaggerated the beauty 
of it, but it bore no signature, and M. Guizot himself had no 
idea with regard to the painter. " There is a curious story 
connected with it," he said, " but I cannot tell it you now ; 
come and see me one morning and I will. As an English- 
man it will interest you ; especially if you will take the trouble 
to read between the lines. I will tell you a few more, perhaps, 
but the one connected with the picture is ' la bonne bouche.' " 

The company at M. Guizot's, on that and other occasions, 
mainly consisted of those who had been vanquished in the 
recent struggle with Louis-Napoleon, or thought they had 
been ; for a great many were mere word-spinners, who had 
been quite as vehement in their denunciations of the man 
they were now surrounding when he was in power, as they 
were in their diatribes against the man who, after all, saved 
France for eighteen years from anarchy, and did not indulge 
more freely in nepotism, peculation, and kindred amenities 
than those who came after him. But, at the outset of these 
notes, I took the resolution to eschew politics, and I will en- 
deavour to keep it as far as possible. 

As a matter of course, I soon availed myself of M. Guizot's 
permission to call upon him in the morning, and it was then 



252 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

that he told me the following story connected with the pict- 
ure. 

" After the Spanish marriages, Queen Isabella wished to 
convey to me a signal mark of her gratitude — for w^hat, 
Heaven alone knows, because it is the only political transac- 
tion I would willingly efface from my career. So she con- 
ferred upon me the dukedom of San Antonio, and sent me 
the patent with a most affectionate letter. Honestly speak- 
ing, I was more than upset by this proof of royal kindness, 
seeing that I had not the least wish to accept the title. I felt 
equally reluctant to offend her by declining the high distinc- 
tion offered, I felt sure, from a most generous feeling. I 
went to see the King, and explained my awkward position, 
adding that the name of Guizot w^as all sufficient for me. 
' You are right,' said the King. 'Leave the matter to me ; 
I'll arrange it.' And he did, much to the disgust of M. de 
Salvandy, who had received a title at the same time, but w^ho 
could not accept his while the Prime Minister declined. 

" Then she sent me this picture. Some witty journalist 
said, at the time, that it was symbolical of her own married 
state ; for let me tell you that the unfitness of Don Francis 
d'Assis was ' le secret de polichinelle,' however much your 
countrymen may have insisted that it only leaked out after 
the union. Personally I was entirely opposed to it, and, in 
fact, it was not a ministerial question at all, but one of court 
intrigue. Lord Palmerston chose to make it the former, and 
he, and your countrymen through him, are not only morally 
but virtually responsible for the subsequent errors of Isabella. 
Do you know what his ultimatum w^as when the marriage 
had been contracted, when there was no possibility of going 
back ? You do not. AVell, then, I will tell you. ' If Isabella 
has not a child within a twelvemonth, then there will be war 
between England and France.' I leave you to ponder the^ 
consequences for yourself, though I assure you that I washed 
my hands of the affair from that moment. But the French 
as well as the English would never believe me, and history 
will record that ' the austere M. Guizot,' for that is what they 
choose to call me,. ' lent his aid to proceedings which would 
make the most debased pander blush with shame.' 

" It is not the only time that my intentions have been 
purposely misconceived and misconstrued ; nay, I have been 
taxed with things of which I was as innocent as a child. In 
1846, almost at "the same period that the Spanish imbroglio 



NICHOLAS I. AND NAPOLEON. 253 

took place, Count de Montalembert got up in the Upper 
House one day and declared it a disgrace that France should 
have begged the tomb of Napoleon I. from Russia. Now, 
the fact was that France had not begged anything at all. 
The principal part of the monument at the Invalides is the 
sarcophagus. The architect Visconti was anxious that it 
should consist of red porphyry; M. Duchatel and myself 
were of the same opinion. Unfortunately, we had not the 
remotest notion where such red porphyry was to be found. 
The Egyptian quarries, whence the Romans took it, were ex- 
hausted. Inquiries were made in the Vosges, in the Pyre- 
nees, but without result, and we were going to abandon the 
porphyry, when news arrived at the Ministry of the Interior 
that the kind of stone we wanted existed in Russia. 

" Just then my colleague, M. de Salvandy, was sending 
M. Leouzon le Due to the north on a special mission, and I 
instructed him to go as far as St. Petersburg and consult 
Count de Rayneval, our ambassador, as to the best means of 
getting the porphyry. A few months later, M. le Due sent 
me specimens of a stone from a quarry on the banks of the 
Onega Lake, which, if not absolutely porphyry, was the near- 
est to it to be had. M. Visconti having approved of it, I for- 
warded further instructions for the quantity required, and so 
forth. 

" The quarr}^ it appears, belonged to the Crown, and had 
never been worked, could not be worked, Avithout due per- 
mission and the payment of a certain tax. After a great 
many formalities, mainly raised by speculators who had got 
wind of the affair, and had bribed various officials to oppose, 
or, at any rate, intercept the petition sent by M. le Due for the 
necessary authorization. Prince Wolkonsky, the Minister of 
State, acquainted the Czar himself with the affair, and Nicho- 
las, without a moment's hesitation, granted the request, re- 
mitting the tax which M. le Due had estimated at about six 
thousand francs. This took place at a cabinet council, and, 
unfortunately for me, the Czar thought fit to make a little 
speech. ' What a strange destiny ! ' he said, rising from his 
seat and assuming a solemn tone — ' what a strange destiny 
this man's ' — alluding to Napoleon — ' even in death ! It is 
we who struck him the first fatal blow, by the burning of our 
holy and venerable capital, and it is from us that France asks 
his tomb. Let the French envoy have everything he requires, 
and, above all, let no tax be taken.' 



25i AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

" That was enongh ; the German and French papers got 
hold of the last words with the rest ; they confounded the 
tax with the cost of working, which amounted to more than 
two hundred thousand francs ; and up to this day, notwith- 
standing the explanations I and my colleagues offered in re- 
ply to the interpellation of M. de Montalembert, the story 
remains that Kussia made France a present of the tomb of 
Napoleon." 

From that day forth I often called upon M. Guizot, espe- 
cially in the daytime, when I knew that he had finished 
working ; for when he found that his political career Avas 
irrevocably at an end, he turned very cheerfully — I might 
say gladly — to his original avocation, literature. Without 
the slightest fatigue, without the slightest worry, he produced 
a volume of philosophical essays or history evei-y year ; and 
if, unlike Alexandre Dumas, he did not roar with laughter 
while composing, he was often heard to hum a tune. '^En 
etfet," said one of his daughters, the Countess Henriette de 
Witt (both his daughters bore the same name and titles when 
married), "notre pere ne chante presque jamais qu'en tra- 
vaillant." This did not mean that work, and work only, had 
the effect of putting M. Guizot in good humour. He was, 
according to the same authority, uniformly sweet-tempered 
at home, whether sitting in his armchair, surrounded by his 
family, or gently strolling up and down his library. " C'est 
la politique qui le rendait mechant," said Madame de Witt, 
" heureusement il la laissait a la porte. Et 'tres souvent il 
Toubliait de parti-pris an milieu du conseil et alors il nous 
ecrivait des lettres, mais des lettres, comme on n'en ecrit 
plus. En voila deux qu'il m'a ecrites lorsque j'ctais tres 
jeune fille." AVhereupon she showed me what were really 
two charming gossiping little essays on the art of punctua- 
tion. It appears that the little lady was either very indiffer- 
ent to, or ignorant of the art ; and the father wrote, " My dear 
Henriette, I am afraid I shall still have to take you to task 
with regard to your punctuation : there is little or none of it 
in your letters. All punctuation, commas or other signs, 
mark a period of repose for the mind — a stage more or less 
long — an idea which is done with or momentarily suspended, 
and which is being divided by such a sign from the next. 
You suppress those periods, those intervals; you write as 
the stream flows, as the arrow flies. That will not do at 
all, because the ideas one expresses, the things of which we 



GUIZOT ON THIERS. 255 

speak, are not all intimately connected with one another like 
drops of water." 

The second letter showed that Mdlle. Giiizot must have 
taken her revenge, either very cleverly, or that she w^as past 
all redemption in the matter of punctuation; and as the lat- 
ter theory is scarcely admissible, knowing what we do of her 
after-life, we must admit the former. The letter ran as 
folio v>'s : 

*' My dear Hexriette, 

" I dare say you will find me very provoking, but let me 
beg of you not to fling so many commas at my head. You 
are absolutely pelting me with them, as the Komans pelted 
that poor Tarpeia with their bucklers." 

It reminds one of Marguerite Thuillier, who " created 
Mimi " in Miirger and Barriere's " Vie de Boheme," when 
^liirger fell in love with her. " I can't do with him," she 
said to his collaborateur, who pleaded for him, — " I can't do 
with him ; he is too badly dressed, he looks like a scarecrow." 
Barriere advised his friend to go to a good tailor and have 
himself rigged out in the latest fashion. The advice was 
acted upon ; Barriere waited anxiously for the effect of the 
transformation upon the lady's heart. A fortnight elapsed, 
and poor Miirger was snubbed as usual. Barriere interceded 
once more. "lean do less with him than before," was the 
answer ; " he is too well dressed, he looks like a tailor's 
dummy." 

To return to M. Guizot, whom, in the course of the whole 
of our acquaintance, I have only seen once " put out." It 
was when the fiat went forth that his house was to come 
down to make room for the new Boulevard Malesherbes. 
The authorities had been as considerate as possible ; they 
had made no attempt to treat the eminent historian as a sim- 
ple owner of house-property fighting to get the utmost value ; 
they offered him three hundred thousand francs, and M. 
Guizot himself acknowledged that the sum was a handsome 
one. "But I have got thirty thousand volumes to remove, 
besides my notes and manuscripts," he wailed. Then his 
good temper got the better of him, and he had a " sly dig " 
at his former adversary, Adolphe Thiers. " Serves me right 
for having so many books ; happy the historian who prefers 
to trust to his imagination." 



256 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

M. Guizot made up his mind to have his library removed 
to Val-Richer and never to live in Paris again ; but his chil- 
dren and friends prevailed upon him not to forsake society 
altogether, and to take a modest apartment near his old 
domicile, in the Faubourg St. Honore, opposite the English 
embassy, which, however, in those days had not the monu- 
mental aspect it has at present. 

" It is doubtful," said M. Guizot afterwards to me, 
" whether the idea of living in the country would have ever 
entered my mind ten or fifteen years ago. At that time, I 
would not have gone a couple of miles to see the most mag- 
nificent bit of natural scenery : I should have gone a thou- 
sand to see a man of talent." 

And, in fact, up till 1830, when he was nearly forty-four, 
he had never seen the sea, " And if it had not been for an 
electoral journey to l^ormand}^, I might not have seen it 
then." I pointed out to him that M. Thiers had never had 
a country house ; that he did not seem to care for nature, for 
birds, or for flowers. 

" Ah, that's different," he smiled. " I did not care much 
about the country, because I had never seen any of it. Thiers 
does not like it, because tbe birds, the flowers, the trees, live 
and grow without his interference, and he does not care that 
anything on earth should happen without his having a hand 
in it." 

TJiiers was the only man at whom M. Guizot tilted in 
that way. Though brought up in strict Protestant, one 
might almost say Calvinistic principles, he was an ardent ad- 
mirer of Roman Catholicism, which he called " the most ad- 
mirable school of respect in the world." ^o man had suf- 
fered more from the excesses of the first Revolution, seeing 
that his father perished on the scaffold, yet I should not like 
to say that he was not somewhat of a republican at heart, but 
not of a republic " which begins with Plato and necessarily 
ends with a gendarme." " The republic of '48," he used to 
say, " it had not even a Monk, let alone a Washington or a 
Cromwell ; and Louis-Napoleon had to help himself to the 
throne. And depend upon it, if there had been a Cromwell, 
he would have crushed it as the English one crushed the 
monarchy. As for Washington, he would not have meddled 
with it at all." 

" Yes," he said on another occasion, " I am proud of one 
thing — of the authorship of the law on elementary educa- 



DE LAMARTINE. 257 

tion ; but, proud as I am of it, if I could have foreseen the 
uses to which it has been put, to which it is likely to be put 
when I am gone, I would sooner have seen half of the nation 
unable to distinguish an ' A from a bull's foot,' as your coun- 
trymen say." 

With Guizot died almost the last French statesman, 
" who not only thought that he had the privilege to be poor, 
but who carried the privilege too far ; " as some one remarked 
when he heard the news of his demise. Towards the latter 
years of his life, he occupied a modest apartment, on the 
fourth floor, in the Rue Billaut (now the Rue Washington). 
Well might M. de Falloux exclaim, as he toiled up that stair- 
case, " My respect for him increases with every step I take." 

Since M. de Falloux uttered these words, and very long 
before, I have only known one French statesman whose stair- 
case and whose poverty might perhaps inspire the same reflec- 
tions and elicit similar praise. I am alluding to M. Rouher. 

M. de Lamartine's poverty did not breed the same re- 
spect. There was no dignity about it. It was the poverty 
of Oliver Goldsmith sending to Dr. Johnson and feasting 
with the guinea the latter had forwarded by the messenger 
pending his own arrival. Mery had summed up the situa- 
tion with regard to Lamartine's difficulties on the evening of 
the 24th of February, '48, and there is no reason to suspect 
that his statement had been exaggerated. The dynasty of 
the younger branch of the Bourbons had been overthrown 
because Lamartine saw no other means of liquidating the 
350,000 francs he still owed for his princely journey to the 
East. I had been to Lamartine's house once before that 
revolution, and, though his wife was an Englishwoman, I felt 
no inclination to return thither. The household gave me 
the impression of " Du Jellaby dore." The sight of it would 
have furnished Dickens with as good a picture as the one 
he sketched. The principal personage, however, was not 
quite so disinterested as the future mother-in-law of Prince 
Turveydrop. Of course, at that time, there was no question 
of a republic, but the politics advocated and discussed during 
the lunch were too superfine for humble mortals like myself, 
who instinctively felt that — 

" Quelqiies billets de mille francs feraient bien mieux I'affaire " 

of the host. And the instinct was not a deceptive one. 
Four months after February^ 1848, M. de Lamartine had 

18 



258 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

virtually ceased to exist, as far as French politics were con- 
cerned. From that time until the day of his death, the 
world only heard of him in connection with a new book or 
new poem, the avowed purpose of which was, not to make 
the world better or wiser, but to raise money. He kept sing- 
ing like the benighted musician on the Russian steppes keeps 
playing his instrument, to keep away the wolves. 

I knew not one but a dozen men, all of whom visited M. 
de Lamartine. I have never been able to get a single story 
or anecdote about him, not bearing upon the money question. 
He is ten times worse in that respect than Balzac, with this 
additional point in the latter's favour — that he never whines 
to the outside world about his impecuniosity. M. Guizot 
produces a volume every twelvemonth, and asks nothing of 
any one ; he leaves the advertising of it to his publisher : M. 
de Lamartine spends enormous sums in publicity, and sub- 
sidizes, besides, a crowd of journalists, who devour his cred- 
itors' substance while he keeps repeating to them that his 
books do not sell. " If, henceforth, I were to offer pearls 
dissolved in the cup of Cleopatra, people would use the 
decoction to wash their horses' feet." And, all the while, 
people bought his works, though no one cared to read the 
later ones. The golden lyre of yore was worse than dumb ; 
it emitted false and weak sounds, the strings had become re- 
laxed, the golden tongue alone remained. 

When a national subscription is raised to pay his debts, 
the committee are so afraid of his wasting the money that 
they decide to have the proceeds deposited at the Comptoir 
d'Escompte, and that de Lamartine shall not be able to draw 
a farthing until all his affairs are settled. One morning he 
deputes a friend to ask for forty thousand francs, in order to 
pay some bills that are due. They refuse to advance the 
money. De Lamartine invites them to his own house, but 
they stand firm at first. Gradually they give way. " How- 
much do you really want ? " is the question asked at last. 
" Fifty thousand francs," is the answer ; " but I fancy I shall 
be able to manage with thirty thousand francs." 

" If we gave you fifty thousand francs," says M. Emile 
Pereire, " would you give us some breathing- time ? " 

" Yes." 

And Lamartine pockets the fifty thousand francs, thanks 
to his eloquence. 

A better man, though not so great a poet, was Beranger, 



BERANGER. 259 

whom I knew for many years, though my intimacy with him 
did not commence until a few months after the February 
revohition, when I met him coming out of the Palais-Bour- 
hon. " I shall feel obliged," he said, " if you will see me 
home, for I am not at all well ; these violent scenes are not 
at all to my taste." Then, with a very wistful smile, he went 
on : " I have been accused of having held ' the plank across 
the brook over which Louis-Philippe went to the Tuileries.' 
I wish I could be the bridge across the channel on which he 
would return now. Certainly I would have liked a republic, 
but not such a one as we are having in there," pointing to 
the home of the Constituent Assembly. A short while after, 
Beranger tendered his resignation as deputy. 

He lived at Passy then, in the Rue Basse ; the number, if 
I mistake not, Avas twenty-three. He had lived in the same 
quarter fifteen years before, for I used to see him take his 
walks when I was a lad, but it was difficult for Beranger to 
live in the same spot for any length of time. He was, first 
of all, of a very nomadic disposition ; secondly, his quondam 
friends would leave him no peace. There was a constant 
inroad of shady individuals who, on the pretext that he 
was "the people's poet," drained his purse and his cellar. 
Previous to his return to Passy, he had been boarding with a 
respectable widow in the neighbourhood of Yincennes. He 
had adopted the name of Bonnin, and his landlady took him 
to be a modest, retired tradesman, living upon a small 
annuity. When his birthday came round, she and her daugh- 
ters found out that they had entertained an angel unawares, for 
carriage after carriage drove up, and in a few hours the small 
dwelling was filled with magnificent flowers, the visitors 
meanwhile surrounding Beranger, and offering him their con- 
gratulations. As a matter of course, the rumour spread, and 
Beranger fled to Passy, where he invited Mdlle. Judith Frere 
to join him once more. The retreat had been discovered, 
and he resigned himself to be badgered more than usual for 
the sake of the neighbourhood — the Bois de Boulogne was 
hard by ; but the municipal council of Passy, in considera- 
tion of the honour conferred upon the arrondissement and 
Beranger's charity, took it into their heads to pass a resolu- 
tion offering Beranger the most conspicuous place in the 
cemetery for a tomb. The poet fled once more, this time to 
the Quartier-Latin ; but the students insisting on pointing 
him out to their female companions, who, in their enthusiasm, 



260 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

made it a point of embracing liim on every possible occasion, 
especially in the " Closerie des Lilas " — for to the end 
Beranger remained fond of the society of young folk, — 
Beranger was compelled to flit once more. After a short 
stay in the Rue Yendome, in the neighbourliood of the 
Temple, he came to the Quartier-Beaujon, where I visited 
him. 

There have been so many tales with regard to Beranger's 
companion, Mdlle. Judith Frere, and all equally erroneous, 
that I am glad to be able to rectify them. Mdlle. Frere was 
by no means the kind of upper servant she was generally 
supposed to be. A glance at her face and a few moments 
spent in her company could not fail to convince any one that 
she was of good birth. She had befriended Beranger when 
he was very young, they had parted for some time, and they 
ended their days together, for the poet only survived his 
friend three months. Beranger was a model of honesty and 
disinterestedness. Ambition he had little or none ; he was 
somewhat fond of teasing children, not because he had no 
affection for them, but because he loved them too much. 
His portrait by Ary Scheffer is the most striking likeness I 
have ever seen ; but a better one still, perhaps, is by an artist 
who had probably never set eyes on him, I am alluding to 
Hablot Browne, who unconsciously reproduced him to the 
life in the picture of Tom Pinch. As a comjjanion, Beranger 
was charming to a degree. I have never heard him say a 
bitter word. The day I saw him home, I happened to say to 
him, " You ought to be pleased, Yictor Hugo is in the same 
regiment with you." " Yes," he answered, " he is in the 
band." He would never accept a pension from Louis-Napo- 
leon, but he had no bitterness against him. Lamartine was 
very bitter, and yet consented to the Emperor's heading of 
the subscription-list in his behalf. That alone would show 
the difference between the two men. 



SOME MEN OF THE EMPIRE. 261 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Some men of the Empire — Fialin de Persiarny — The public prosecutor's opinion 
of him expressed at the trial for hii^h treason in 1836 — Superior in many- 
respects to Louis-Napoleon — The revival of the Empire his only and con- 
stant dream — In order to realize it, he appeals iirst to Jerome, ex-King of 
Westphalia — De Persiijrny's estimate of him — Jerome's greed and Louis- 
Napoleon's generosity — De Persigny's financial embarrassments — His char- 
ity — What the Empii-e really meant to him — De Persigny virtually the 
moving spirit in the Coup d'Etat — Louis-Napoleon might have been satis- 
lied with the presidency of the republic for life — Persigny seeks for aid in 
England — Palmerston's share in the Coup d'Etat — The submarine cable — 
Preparations for tlie Coup d'Etat — A warning of it sent to England — Count 
Walewski issues invitations for a dinner-party on the 2nd of December — 
Opinion in London that Louis-Napoleon will get the worst in the struggle 
with the Chamber — The last funds from London — General de Saint- Arnaiid 
and Baron Lacrosse — The Elysee-Bourbon on tlie evening of the 1st of 
December — I pass the Elysee at midnight^Nothing unusual — London on 
the 2nd of December— The dinner at Count Walewski's put oft at the last 
moment — Illuminations at the French Embassy a few hours later — Palmer- 
ston at the Embassy — Some traits of De Persigny's character — His personal 
affection for Louis-Napoleon — Madame de Persigny — Her parsimony — Her 
cooking of the household accounts — Che vet and Madame de Persigny — 
What the Empire might have been with a Von Moltke by the side of the 
Emperor instead of Vaillant, Niel, and Leba?uf— Colonel '(afterwards Gen- 
eral) Fleury the only modest man among the Emperor's entourage — De 
Persigny's pretensions as a Heaven-born statesman — Mgr. de Merode — De 
Morny— His first meeting with his half-brother — De Morny as a grand 
seigneur — The origin of the Mexican campaign — Walewski — His fads — 
Eouher — My first sight of him in the Quartier-Latin — The Emperor's 
opinion of him at the beginning of liis career — Rouhcr in his native home, 
Auvergne — His marriage— Madame Roulier — His father-in-law. 

" A MAN endowed with a strong will and energy, active 
and intelligent to a degree, with the faculty of turning up at 
every spot where his presence was necessary either to revive 
the lagging plot or to gain fresh adherents ; a man better 
acquainted than all the rest with the secret springs u23on 
which the conspiracy hung." 

This description of M. de Persigny is borrowed from the 
indictment at the trial for high treason in 1836. Every par- 
ticular of it is correct, yet it is a very one-sided diagnosis of 
the character of Napoleon's staunchest henchman. If I had 
had to paint him morally and mentally in one line, I should, 



262 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

without intending to be irreverent, have called him the John 
the Baptist of the revived Napoleonic legend. There could 
be no doubt about his energy, his activity, and his intelli- 
gence ; in respect to the former two he Avas absolutely supe- 
rior to Louis-Napoleon, but they, the activity and energy and 
intelligence, would only respond to the bidding of one voice, 
that of the first Napoleon from the grave, which, he felt sure, 
had appointed him the chief instrument for the restoration 
of the Empire. It was the dream that haunted his sleep, 
that pursued him when awake. Let it not be thought, though, 
that Louis-Napoleon appeared to him as the one selected by 
Providence to realize that dream. Loyal and faithful as he 
was to him from the day they met until his (Persigny's) 
death, he would have been equally loyal and faithful, though 
perhaps not so deeply attached, to Jerome, the ex-King of 
Westphalia, to whom he appealed first. But the youngest of 
the great Napoleon's brothers did not relish adventures, and 
he turned a deaf ear to Persigny's proposals, as he did later 
on to those of M. Thiers, who wished him to become a candi- 
date for the presidency of the Second Republic. 

I was talking one day on the subject of the hitter's refusal 
to De Persigny, several years after the advent of the Empire, 
and commending Jerome for his abnegation of self and his 
fealty to his nephew. There was a sneer on Persigny's face 
such as I had never seen there before ; for though he was by 
no means good-tempered, and frequently very violent, he 
generally left the members of the Imperial family alone. He 
noticed my surprise, and explained at once. " It is very evi- 
dent that you do not know Jerome, nor did I until a few 
years ago. There is not a single one of the great Napoleon's 
brothers who really had his glory at heart ; it meant money 
and position to them, that is all. Do you know why Jerome 
did not fall in with my views and those of M, Thiers ? Well, 
I will tell you. He was afraid that his nephew Louis and the 
rest of the family would be a burden on him ; he preferred 
that others should take the chestnuts out of the fire and that 
he should have the eating of them. That is what his self- 
abnegation meant, nothing more." 

I am afraid that De Persigny was not altogether wrong in 
his estimate of the ex-King of Westphalia. He was insa- 
tiable in his demands for money to his nephew. In fact, with 
the exception of Princesse Mathilde, the whole of the Em- 
peror's family was a thorn in his side. 



PERSIGNY AND THE COUP D'ETAT. 263 

The Emperor himself was absolutely incapable of refusing 
a service. I have the following story on very good authority. 
De Persigny, who was as lavish as his Imperial master, was 
rarely ever out of difficulties, and in such emergencies natu- 
rally appealed to the latter. He had wasted on, or sunk 
enormous sums in, his country estate of Chamarande, where 
he entertained with boundless hospitality. As a matter of 
course, he was always being pursued by his creditors. One 
early morn — Persigny always went betimes when he wanted 
money — he made his appearance in the Emperor's private 
room, looking sad and dejected. Xapoleon refrained for a 
while from questioning him as to the cause of his low spirits, 
but finally ventured to say that he looked ill. 

" Ah, sire," was the answer, " I am simply bent down with 
sorrow. This Chamarande, which I have created out of noth- 
ing as it were " — it had cost nearly two millions of francs — 
"is ruining me. I shall be forced to give it up." 

De Persigny felt sure that he would be told there and 
then not to worry himself ; but the Emperor was in a jocu- 
lar mood, and took delight in prolonging his anxiety. " Be- 
lieve me, my dear due," said Napoleon with an assumed air 
of indifference, " it is the best thing you can do. Get rid of 
Chamarande ; it is too great a burden, and you'll breathe 
more freely when it's gone." 

De Persigny turned as white as a ghost ; whereupon Na- 
poleon, who was soft-hearted to a degree, took a bundle of 
notes from his drawer and handed them to him. De Per- 
signy went away beaming. 

It must not be inferred from this that De Persigny was 
grasping like Prince Jerome and others, who constantly 
drained Napoleon's purse. De Persigny's charity was pro- 
verbial, but he gave blindly, and as a consequence, was fre- 
quently imposed upon. When young he had joined the 
Saint-Simoniens ; his great aim was to make everybody happy. 
To him the restoration of the Empire meant not only the re- 
vival of Napoleon's glor}', but the era of universal happiness, 
of universal material prosperity. As a rule, he was thorough- 
ly unpractical ; the whole of his life's w^ork may be summed 
up in one line — he conceived and organized the Coup d'Etat. 
As such he was virtually the founder of the Second Empire. 
In that task practice went hand in hand with theory ; when 
the task was accomplished, his inspiration was utterly at fault. 

Historians have been generally content to attribute the 



264 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

principal role in the Coup d'Etat, next to that of Louis-Na- 
poleon, to M. de Morny. Of course, I am speaking of those 
who conceived it, not of those Avho executed it. The parts 
of Generals Magnan and De Saint- Arnaud, of Colonel de Be- 
ville and M. de Maupas, scarcely admit of discussion. But the 
fact is that De Morny did comparatively nothing as far as the 
conception was concerned. The prime mover was undoubtedly 
De Persigny, and it is a very moot question whether, but for 
him, it would have been conceived at all. I know I am tread- 
ing on dangerous ground, but I have very good authority for 
the whole of the following notes relating to it. In De Per- 
signy's mind the whole of the scheme was worked out prior to 
Louis-Napoleon's election to the presidency, though of course 
the success of it depended on that election. He did not want 
a republic, even with Louis-Napoleon as a president for life ; 
he wanted an empire. I should not like to afhrm that Prince 
Louis would not have been content with such a position ; it was 
Persigny who put down his foot, exclaiming, ^^Aut Ccesar^ 
aut nullus I " That the sentence fell upon willing ears, there 
IS equally no doubt, and when the Prince-President had his 
foot upon the first rung of the ladder, he would probably have 
rushed, or endeavoured to rush, to the top at once, regardless 
of the risk involved in this perilous ascent, for there would 
have been no one, absolutely no one, to steady the ladder at 
the bottom. De Persigny held him back while he busied 
himself in finding not only the jjersomiel that was to hold 
the latter, but the troops that would jDrevent the crowd from 
interfering Avith the ladder-holders. It was he who was the 
first to broach the recall of De Saint- Arnaud from Africa ; it 
was he who drew attention to M. de Maupas, then little 
more than an obscure prefect ; it was he who was wise enough 
to see that " the ladder-holders " would have to be sought for 
in England, and not in France. " The English," he said to 
Napoleon, " owe you a good turn for the harm they have done 
to your uncle. They are sufificiently generous or sufficiently 
sensible to do that good turn, if it is in their interest to do 
so ; look for your support among the English." 

I' fancy it was Lord Palmerston's dislike of Louis-Philippe 
on account of "the Spanish marriages," rather than a senti- 
ment of generosity towards Louis-Napoleon, that made him 
espouse his cause, but I feel certain that he did espouse it. I 
have good ground for saying that his interviews with Comte 
Walewski were much more frequent than his ministerial col- 



PREPARATIONS FOR THE COUP D'ETAT. 265 

leagues suspected, or the relations between England and 
France, however friendly they may have been, warranted. 
But everything was not ready. Palnierston and AYalewski 
on the English side of the Channel, Louis-Xapoleon and_De 
Persigny on the French side, were waiting for something. 
What was it? Nothing more nor less than the laying of 
the submarine cable between Dover and Calais, the con- 
cession for which was given on the 8th of January, 1851, and 
on which occasion the last words to Mr. Walker Breit were 
to hurry it on as much as possible, " seeing that it is of the 
id most importance for the French Government to be in direct 
and rapid commiinication with the Cabinet of St. Janiesy 
The Cabinet meant Lord Palmerston. Xevertheless, it is 
not until ten months later that the cable is laid, and from 
that moment events march apace. Let us glance at them for 
a moment. Telegraphic communication between Dover and 
Calais is established on the 13th of Xovember. On the 15th, 
General Saint- Arnaud gives orders that the degree of 1819, 
confei-ring on the president of the National Assembly the 
right of summoning and disposing of the military forces 
which had hitherto been hung up in every barracks through- 
out the land, shall be taken down. On the 16th, Changar- 
nier, Leflo, and Baze, with many others, decide that a bill 
shall be introduced immediately, conferring once more that 
right on the president of the Assembly. The opponents of 
the Prince-President are already rubbing their hands with 
glee at the thought of their success, for it means that Prince 
Louis and his adherents will be in their power, and in their 
power means removal to Yincennes or elsewhere, as prisoners 
of State. On the 18th, the bill is thrown out by a majority 
of 108, and the Assembly is virtually powerless henceforth 
against any and every attack from the military. It was on 
that very evening that the date of the Coup d'Etat was fixed 
for the 2nd of December, notwithstanding the hesitation and 
wavering of Louis-Napoleon. On the 26th a young attache 
is despatched from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the 
French Embassy in London, instead of the ordinary cabinet 
(or queen's) messenger, which proves that the despatches are 
more important than usual. They contain letters from the 
Prince-President himself to Comte Walewski, the contents of 
which are probably known to the Marquis de Turgot, but 
which are despatched in that way, instead of being sent di- 
rectly from the Elysee by a trustworthy person, because the 



266 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

presidential residence is watched day and night by the " coun- 
ter-police " of the Assembly. The reason why the Marquis 
de Turgot selects a young aristocrat is because he feels cer- 
tain that he cannot be tampered with. On the 29th of ]No- 
vember a connection of mine receives a letter from a friend 
in London, who is supposed to be behind the scenes, but who 
this time is utterly in the dark. It is to the following effect: 
" There is something in the wind, but I know not what. 
Both yesterday morning (27th) and to-day Walewski has 
been closeted for more than two hours each time with Pal- 
merston. There is to be a grand dinner at Walewski's on the 
second of next month, to which I received an invitation. Can 
you tell me what mischief is brewing ? " 

The recipient of the letter was neither better nor worse 
informed than the rest of us, and in spite of all the assertions 
to the contrary which have been made since, no one foresaw 
the crisis in the shape it came upon us. On the contrary, the 
general oj)inion was that in the end Louis-Napoleon would 
get the worse, in spite of the magic influence of his name 
with the army. It was expected that if the troops were called 
upon to act against the National Assembly, they would re- 
fuse and turn against their leaders. I am by no means cer- 
tain that the Prince-President did not entertain a similar 
opinion up to the last moment, for I have it on excellent 
authority that as late as the 26th of November he endeav- 
oured to postpone the affair for a month. It was then that 
De Persigny showed his teeth, and insisted upon the night 
of the 1st or 2nd of December as the latest. The interview 
was a very stormy one. On that very morning De Persigny 
had received a letter from London, not addressed to his 
residence. It contained a draft for £2000, but with the inti- 
mation that these would be the last funds forthcoming. He 
showed the Prince-President the letter, and Napoleon gave in 
there and then. The letters spoken ol just now w^ere de- 
spatched on the same day. It was with that money that the 
Coup d'Etat was made, and all the stories about a million 
and a half of francs being handed resj)ectively to De Morny, 
De Maupas, Saint-Arnaud, and the rest are so much in- 
vention. 

Up to six o'clock in the afternoon of the 1st of December, 
General de Saint-Arnaud was virtually undecided, not with 
regard to the necessity of the Coup d'Etat, but with regard 
to the opportuneness of it within the next twelve hours. I 



LOUDON OX THE DAY OF THE COUP D'ETAT. 267 

have the following story from the lips of Baron Lacrosse, 
who was one of the actors in it. On the eve of the Coup 
d'Etat he was Minister of Public Works, and as such was 
present at the sitting of the Assembly on the 1st of December. 
A member ascended the tribune to interpellate the Minister 
for AVar, and, the latter being absent, the question was de- 
ferred until next day. That same evening, 1st of December, 
there was an official dinner at M. Daviel's, the Minister of 
Justice, and at the termination of the sitting, M. Lacrosse 
called m his carriage at the Ministry for AYar to take his col- 
league. " You may make up your mind for a warm half- 
hour to-morrow," he said with a smile, as he entered General 
Saint- Arnaud's room. "Why?" asked the general. "You 
are going to be interpellated." " I expected as much, and 
was just considering my answer. I am glad you warned me 
in time. 1 think I know what to say now." 

I do not believe that Baron Lacrosse had the faintest ink- 
ling of the real drift of the remark, nor have I ever asked him 
directly whether he had. As far as I could gather afterwards 
from one or two joeople who Avere there, the Elysee presented 
no unusual feature that night. The reception was well at- 
tended, as the ordinary receptions on Mondays generally were, 
for the times had gone by when the courtyard was a howling 
wilderness dotted with two, or perhaps three, hackney cabs. 
It would appear that a great many well-known men and a 
corresponding number of pretty women moved as usual 
through the salons, only one of which w^as shut up, that at 
the very end of the suite, and which did duty as a council- 
chamber, and contained the portrait of the then young Em- 
peror of Austria, Francis-Joseph. But this was scarcely 
noticed, nor did the early withdrawal of the Prince-President 
provoke any comment, for it happened pretty often. Very 
certain is it that at twelve o'clock that night the Elysee was 
wrapt in darkness, for I happened to pass there at that hour. 
Standing at the door, or rather inside it, was the captain of 
the guard, smoking a cigar. I believe it was Captain De- 
sondes of the " Guides," but I will not be sure, for I was not 
near enough to distinguish plainly. The Faubourg St. Ho- 
nore was pretty well deserted, save for a few individuals 
prowling about ; they were probably detectives in the pay of 
the Prince- President's adversaries. 

Let me return for a moment to London, and give an ac- 
count of what happened there on the 2nd of December, as 



268 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

supplied by the writer of the above-mentioned letter, in an 
epistle which reached Paris only on the 7th. 

It appears that on the day of the Coup d'Etat London 
woke up amidst a dense fog. Virtually the news of what 
happened in Paris early that morning did not spread until 
between two and three o'clock. Our informant had been in- 
vited to a dinner-party at the French Embassy that night, 
and though in no way actively connected with politics, he 
was asking himself whether he should go or stay away, when, 
at five o'clock, he received a note from the Embassy, saying 
that the diuner would not take place. The fact was that at 
the eleventh hour the whole of the corps diplomatique had 
sent excuses. Our friend went to his club, had his dinner, 
and spent part of the evening there. At about eleven a crony 
of his came in, and seeing him seated in the smoking-room, 
exclaimed, " Why, I thought you were going to Walewski's 
dinner and reception." "So I was," remarked our friend, 
" but it was countermanded at five." " Countermanded ? 
Why, I passed the Embassy just now, and it was blazing with 
light. Come and look." 

They took a cab, aiid sure enough the building was posi- 
tively illuminated. Our friend went in, and the salons were 
crammed to suffocation. Lord Palmerston was talking ani- 
matedly to Count Walewski ; the whole corps diplomatique 
accredited to the court of St. James was there. The fact 
was that about nine or half-past the most favourable news 
from Paris had reached London. The report soon spread 
that Lord Palmerston had officially adhered to the Coup 
d'Etat, and that he had telegraphed in that sense to the vari- 
ous English embassies abroad without even consulting his 
fellow-ministers. 

I believe our friend was correctly informed, for it is well 
known that Palmerston did not resign, but was virtually dis- 
missed from office. He never went to Windsor to give up 
the seals ; Lord John Russell had to do it for him. Persigny, 
therefore, considered that he had fallen in the cause of Louis- 
Napoleon, and as such he became little short of an idol. The 
Prince-President himself was not far from sharing in that 
worship. 'Not once, but a hundred times, his familiars have 
heard him say, " Avec Palmerston on pent faire des grandes 
choses." Nevertheless, Palmerston appealed more to De Per- 
signy's imagination than to Louis-Napoleon's. After all, he 
was perhaps much more of a Kichelieu than a constitutional 



DB PERSIGNY AND LOUIS NAPOLEON. 269 

minister in a constitutional country has a right to be now-a- 
days, and that was what Persigny admired above all things. 
His long stay in England had by no means removed his in- 
herent dislike to parliamentary government, and, rightly or 
wrongly, he credited Palmerston with a similar sentiment. 

De Persigny was amiable and obliging enough, provided 
one knew how to manage him, and with those whom he liked, 
but exceedingly thin-skinned and often violent with those 
whom he disliked. He was, moreover, very jealous with re- 
gard to Louis-Naj^oleon's affection for him. I doubt whether 
he really minded the influence wielded by the Empress, De 
Morny, and Walewski over the Emperor, but he grudged 
them their place in the Emperor's heart. This was essen- 
tially the case with regard to the former. He would have 
been glad to see his old friend and Imperial master contract 
a loveless marriage with some insignificant German or Eus- 
sian princess, who would have borne her husband few or many 
children, in order to secure the safety of the dynasty, but the 
passion that prompted the union with Eugenie de Montijo he 
considered virtually as an injury to himself. I give his opin- 
ion on that subject in English, because, though expressed in 
i'rench, it had certainly been inspired by his sojourn in Eng- 
land. " When love invades a man's heart, there is scarcely 
any room left for friendship. You cannot drive love for a 
woman and friendship for a man in double harness, you are 
obliged to drive them tandem ; and what is worse in a case 
like that of the Emperor, friendship becomes the leader and 
love the wheeler. Of course, to the outsider, friendship has 
the place of honour ; in reality, love, the wheeler, is in closest 
contact with the driver and the vehicle, and can, moreover, 
have a sly kick at friendship, the leader. Personally, I am an 
exception — I may say a phenomenal exception — beCcUise my 
affection for the Emperor is as strong as my love for my 
wife." 

Those who knew both the Emperor and Madame de Per- 
signy might have fitly argued that this equal division of 
affection was a virtual injustice to the sovereign, who was 
decidedly more amiable than the spouse. The former rarely 
did a spiteful thing from personal motives of revenge ; I 
only know of two. He never invited Lady Jersey to the 
Tuileries during the Empire, because she had shown her dis- 
like of him when he was in London ; he exiled David d'An- 
gers because the sculptor had refused to finish the monu- 



270 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. ' 

ment of Queen Hortense after the Coup-d'Etat. David 
d' Angers was one of the noblest creatures that ever lived, 
and I mean to speak of him at greater length. On the other 
hand, Madame de Persigny made her husband's life, not- 
withstanding his love for her, a burden by her whimsical dis- 
position, her vindictive temperament, and her cheeseparing 
in everything except her own lavish expenditure on dress. 
She was what the French call " une femme qui fait des 
scenes ; " she almost prided herself upon being superior in 
birth to her husband, though in that respect there was really 
not a pin to choose between her grandfather, Michel Ney, 
the stable-boy, who had risen to be a duke of the First Em- 
pire, and her husband, the sergeant-quartermaster Fialin, 
who became Due de Persigny under the second. She was 
always advocating retrenchment in the household. " True," 
said Persigny, " she cuts down her dresses too, but the more 
she cuts, the more they cost." For in his angry moments he 
would now and then tell a story against his wife. Here is 
one. Persigny, as I have already said, was hospitable to a 
fault, but he had always to do battle when projecting a grand 
entertainment. " There was so much trouble with the serv- 
ants, and as for the chef, his extravagance knew no bounds." 
So said madame ; and sick at last of always hearing the 
same complaints, he decided to let Chevet provide. All 
went well at first, because he himself went to the Palais- 
Royal to give his orders, merely stating the number of guests, 
and leaving the rest to the famous caterers, than whom there 
are no more obliging or conscientious purveyors anywhere. 
After a little while he began to leave the arrangements to 
madame ; she herself sent out the invitations, so there could 
be no mistake with regard to the number. He soon per- 
ceived, however, that the dinners, if not inferior in quality 
to the former ones, were decidedly inferior in quantity. At 
last, one evening, when there were twenty-six people round 
the board, there was not enough for twenty, and next day 
De Persigny took the road to the Palais-Royal once more 
to lodge his complaint personally. " Comment, monsieur le 
comte," was the reply of one of the principals, " vous dites 
qu'il y avait vingt-six convives et qu'il n'y avait pas de quoi 
nourrir vingt ; je vous crois parfaitement ; voila la com- 
mando de madame la comtesse, copiee dans notre registre : 
* Diner chez M. de Persigny pour seize personnes.' " 

Madame liAd simply pocketed, or intended to pocket, fif- 



DE PERSIGNY AND HIS WIFE. 271 

teen hundred francs — for Clievet rarely charged less than a 
hundred and fifty francs per head, wines included — and had 
endeavoured to make the food for sixteen do for twenty-six. 
Of course there was a scene. Madame promised amendment, 
and the husband was only too willing to believe. The amend- 
ment was worse than the original oifence, for one night the 
whole of the supper-table, set out a la Fran9aise, i. e., with 
everything on it, gave way, because, her own dining-table 
having proved too small, she had declined Chevet's offer of 
providing one at a cost of seven or eight francs, and sent for 
a jobbing carpenter to put together some boards and trestles 
at the cost of two francs. Chevet managed to provide an- 
other banquet within three quarters of an hour, wdiich, with 
the one that had been spoiled, was put in the bill. Within 
a comparatively short time of her husband's death, early in 
the seventies, Madame de Persigny contracted a second mar- 
riage, in direct opposition to the will of her family. 

Most of the men in the immediate entourage of the Em- 
peror were intoxicated with their sudden leap into power, 
but of course the intoxication manifested itself in different 
ways. A good many considered themselves the composers of 
the Napoleonic Opera — for it was really such in the way it 
held the stage of France for eighteen years, the usual tragic 
finale not even being w^anting. AVith the exception of De 
Persigny, they were in reality iDut the orchestral performers, 
and he, to give him his utmost due, was only the orchestra- 
tor of the score and part author of the libretto. The origi- 
nal themes had been composed by the exile of St. Helena, 
and were so powerfully attractive to, and so constantly haunt- 
ing, tlie ears of the majority of Frenchmen as to have re- 
quired no outward aid to remembrance for thirty-five years, 
though I do not forget either Thiers' works, Victor Hugo's 
poetry, Louis-Philippe's generous transfer of the great cap- 
tain's remains to France, nor Louis-Napoleon's own attempts 
at Strasburg and Boulogne, all of which contributed to that 
effect. Nevertheless, all the artisans of the Coup d'Etat 
considered themselves nearly as great geniuses as the intel- 
lectual and military giant who conceived and executed the 
19th Brumaire, and pretended to impose their policy upon 
Europe by imposing their will upon the Emperor, though 
not one could hold a candle to him in statecraft. Napoleon 
with a Moltke by his side would have been a match for Bis- 
marck, and the left bank of the Rhine might have been 



272 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

French ; Alsace-Lorraine would certainly not have been Ger- 
man. It is not my purpose, however, to enter upon politics. 
I repeat, De Persigny, De Morny, and to a certain extent 
Walewski, endeavoured to exalt themselves into political Na- 
poleons at all times and seasons ; De Saint- Arnaud felt con- 
vinced that the strategical mantle of the great warrior had 
fallen upon him ; De Maupas fancied himself another Fouche. 
The only one who was really free from pretensions of either 
kind was Colonel (afterwards General) Fleury. He was the 
only modest man among the lot. 

The greatest offender in that way was, no doubt, De Per- 
signy. During his journey to Rome in 1866 he did not hesi- 
tate to tender his political advice to such past masters in 
diplomacy as Pius IX. and Cardinal Antonelli. Both pre- 
tended to profit by the lesson, but Mgr. de Merode,* who was 
not quite so patient, had many an animated discussion with 
him, in wdiich De Persigny frequently got the worst. One 
evening the latter thought fit to twit him with his pugna- 
ciousness. " I suppose, monsignor," he said, " it's the ancient 
leaven of the trooper getting the upper hand now and then." 
" True," replied the ]3relate ; " I was a captain in the foreign 
legion, and fought in Africa, where I got my cross of the 
Legion of Honour. But you, monsieur le due, I fancy I 
have heard that you were more or less of a sergeant-quarter- 
master in a cavalry regiment." 

Mgr. de Merode could have done De Persigny no greater 
injury than to remind him of his humble origin. He al- 
ways winced under such allusions ; his constant preoccupa- 
tion was to make people forget it, and he often exposed him- 
self to ridicule in the attempt. He knew nothing about art, 
and yet he would speak about it, not as if he had studied the 

* Frederic Xavier de Merode was the descendant of an ancient Flemish 
family, and became an influential mem1)er of the l*relatiu-a. He took an active 
share' in the ortranization of the Papal troops wiiich^ fouirht at Mentana. There 
is a romantic but absolutely true story connected with his military career, lie 
was from his very youth intended for the priesthood, but one day, when he wsis 
but nineteen, he" liad a quarrel with a fellow-student, who gave him a box on 
the ears. M. de Merode was too conscientious a Catholic to fitrht a duel, and 
still liis pride forbade him to remain under the imputation of being a coward. 
So he enlisted first in a Belgian, subsequently in a foreign regiment, and jn-oved 
his courage. He was very hot-tempered, and had frequent disagreements with 
Generals Lamoriciere and De Guyon, and even with Pius IX, himself, who, on 
the occasion of the pronmlgation of the decree of infallibility, positively forbade 
him to enter the Vatican again. But he soon afterwards made his peace with 
the Pontiff. His worst enemies — and he had many — never questioned his sin- 
cerity and loyalty. — Editor. 



DE MORNY. 273 

subject, but as if he had been brought up in a refined society, 
where the atmosphere had been impregnated with it. As a 
matter of course, he became an easy victim to the picture- 
dealers and bric-a-brac merchants. I remember his silver 
being taken to the mint during the Siege. He had paid an 
enormous price for it on the dealer's representation that it 
was antique : " C'est du Louis XV. tout pur." " Tellement 
pur que c'est du Victoria," said a connoisseur ; and he was 
not mistaken, for it had been manufactured by a firm of 
London silversmiths. But it was a compliment "^for all that 
to the Queen. 

With all his faults, De Persigny was at heart a better 
man than De Morny, who affected to look down upon him. 
True, the latter had none of his glaring defects, neither had 
he any of his sterling virtues. One evening, in January, 
1849, when the Prince-President had been less than a month 
at the Elysee, a closed carriage drove into the courtyard and 
stopped before the flight of steps leading to the hall, which, 
like the rest of the building, was already wrapt in semi- 
darkness. A gentleman alighted w^ho was evidently ex- 
pected, for the officer on duty conducted him almost without 
a word to the private apartments of the President, where the 
latter was walking up and down, the usual cigarette between 
his lips, evidently greatly preoccupied and visibly impatient. 
The door had scarcely opened when the Prince's face, gener- 
ally so difficult to read, lighted up as if by magic. Before 
the officer had time to announce the visitor, the prince 
stepped forward, held out his hand, and with the other 
clasped the new-comer to his breast. The officer knew the 
visitor. It was the Comte Auguste de Morny. As a matter 
of course he retired, and saw and heard no more. I had the 
above account from his own lips, and he felt certain that this 
was the first time the brothers had ever met. 

The Comte de Morny was close upon forty then, and for 
at least half of that time had been emancipated from all 
restraint ; he was a well-known figure in the society of Louis- 
Philippe's reign ; he had been a deputy for one of the con- 
stituencies in Auvergne ; at the period of his first meeting 
with Louis- Napoleon he was at the head of an important in- 
dustrial establishment down that way, and one fain asks one's 
self why he had waited until then to shake his brother's 
hand. The answer is not difficult. There is an oft-repeated 
story about De Morny having been at the Opera-Comique 

19 



274: AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

during the evening of the 1st of December, 1851. Rumours 
of the Coup d'Etat were rife, and a lady said, " II parait qu'on 
va donner un fameux coup de balai. De quel cote serez 
vous, M. de Morny?" " Soyez sure, madame, que je serai du 
cote du manche." Morny always averred that he had said 
nothing of the kind. " They invented it afterwards, perhaps 
because they credited me with the instinctive faculty of being 
on the winning side, the side of the handle, in any and every 
emergency." 

I think one may safely accept that version, and that is 
why he refrained from claiming his brother's friendship and 
acquaintance until he felt almost certain that the latter was 
fingering the handle of the broom that was to make a clean 
sweep of the Second Republic. It is difficult to determine 
how much or how little he contributed to the success of that 
sweep, but I have an idea that it was very little. One thing 
is very certain, for I have it on very good — I may say, the 
best — authority. He did not contribute any money to the 
undertaking ; he endeavoured to raise funds from others, but 
he himself did not loosen his purse-strings ; when, curiously 
enough, he was the only one among the immediate entou- 
rage of Louis-Napoleon whose purse-strings were worth loos- 
ening. 

xiUowing for the difference of sex, better breeding and 
better education, De Morny often reminded one of Rachel. 
They possessed the same powers of fascination, and were, I 
am afraid, equally selfish at heart. To read the biographies 
of both — I do not mean those that pretend to be historical — 
one would think that there had never been a grande dame 
on the stage of the Comedie-Fran9aise before Rachel or con- 
temporary with her, though Augustine Brohan was decidedly 
more grande dame than Rachel in every respect. It is the 
same with regard to De Morny. To the chroniqueur during 
the Second Empire he was the only grand seigneur — the rest 
were only seigneurs; but I am inclined to think that the 
chroniqueur of those days had seen very few real grand sei- 
gneurs. To use a popular locution, '' they did not go thirteen 
to the dozen " at the court of Xapoleon III. ; and among the 
people with whom De Morny came habitually in contact, in 
the course of his financial and industrial schemes, a grand 
seigneur was even a greater rarity than at the Tuileries. If 
a kind of quiet impertinence to some of one's fellow-creatures, 
and a tacitly expressed contempt for nearly the whole of the 



DE MORNY "THE GRAND SEIGNEUR. 275 

rest, constitute the grand seigneur, then certainly De Morny 
could have claimed the title. I have elsewhere noted the 
meeting of Taglioni with her husband at De Morny's dinner- 
party. If it had been arranged by the host with the view of 
effecting a reconciliation between the couple, then nothing 
could have been more praiseworthy ; but 1 am not at all sure 
of it. If it were not, then it became an unpardonable joke 
at the woman's expense, and in the worst taste; but the 
chroniqueur of those days would have applauded it all the 
same. 

Here are two stories which, at different times, were told 
by De Morny's familiars and sycophants in order to stamp 
him the grand seigneur. Late in the fifties he was an as- 
siduous frequenter of the salons of a banker, whose sisters- 
in-law happened to be very handsome. One evening, while 
talking to one of them, they came to ask him to take a hand 
at lansquenet. He had evidently no intention of leaving the 
society of the lady for that of the gaming-table, and said so. 
Of course, his host was in the wrong in pressing the thing, 
nevertheless one has yet to learn that " two wrongs make one 
right." 

" AVhat wall you play ? " they asked, when they had as 
good as badgered him away from his companion. 

" The sim2:)le rouge and the noir. That's the quickest." 

" How much for ? " 

" Ten thousand francs." 

The stake seemed somewhat high, and no one cared to 
take it up. But the host himself felt bound to set the ex- 
ample, and the sum was made up. De Morny lost, and was 
about to rise from the table, when they said — 

" Have your revenge." 

" Very well ; ten thousand on the black." 

He lost again. ^lost grand seigneurs would have got up 
without saying anything. Twenty thousand francs was, after 
all, not an important sum to him, and I feel, moreover, cer- 
tain that it w^as not the loss of the money that vexed him. 
But he felt bound to emphasize his indifference. 

" There, that will do. I trust I shall be left in peace 
now." 

My informant considered this exceedingly talon rouge ; 
I did not. 

A story of a similar kind, when he was a simple deputy. 
A bigwig, with an inordinate ambition to become a minister, 



276 -A^N ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

invited him to dinner. He had been told that his host was 
in the habit of drinking a rare Bordeaux which was only 
offered to one or two guests, quietly pointed out by the for- 
mer to the servant. At the question of the latter whether 
he (M. de Morny) would take Brane-Mouton or Ermitage, 
he pointed to the famous bottle that had been hidden away. 
The servant, as badly trained as the master, looked embar- 
rassed, but at last filled De Morny's glass with the precious 
nectar. De Morny simply poured it into a tumbler and di- 
luted it with water. 

Eidiculous as it may seem, De Morny often spoke and 
acted as if he had royal blood in his veins, and in that re- 
spect scarcely considered himself inferior to Colonna Walew- 
ski, of whose origin there could be no doubt. A glance at 
the man's face was sufficient Both frequently spoke and 
acted as if Louis-Naj^oleon occupied the Imperial throne by 
their good will, and that, therefore, he was, in a measure, 
bound to dance to their fiddling. Outwardly these two were 
fast friends, up to a certain period ; I fancy that their com- 
mon hatred of De Persigny w^as the strongest link of that 
bond. In reality they were as jealous of one another and of 
their influence over the Emperor as they were of De Per- 
signy and his. The latter, who was well aware of all this, 
frankly averred that he preferred Walewski's undisguised and 
outspoken hostility to De Morny's very questionable cordial- 
ity. " The one would take my head like Judith took Holo- 
fernes', the other would shave it like Delilah shaved Sam- 
son's, provided I trusted myself to either, which I am not 
likely to do." 

It was De Persigny who told me the substance of the fol- 
lowing story, and I believe every word of it, because, first, I 
never caught De Persigny telling a deliberate falsehood; 
secondly, because I lieard it confirmed many years after- 
wards in substance by tw^o persons who were more or less di- 
rectly concerned in it. 

In the latter end of 18C3 one of the sons of Baron James 
de Rothschild died ; I believe it was the youngest of the four, 
but I am not certain. The old baron, who was generosity 
itself when it came to endowing charitable institutions, was 
absolutely opposed to any waste of money. Amidst the 
terrible grief at his loss, he was still the careful administra- 
tor, and sent to M. Emile Perrin, the then director of the 
Grand Opera, and subsequently the director of the Comedie- 



A STORY OF THE MEXICAN CAMPAIGN. 277 

Fran9aise, asking him to dispose of his box on the grand 
tier, under the express condition that it should revert to him 
after a twelvemonth. It was the very thing M. Perrin was 
not empowered to do. Though nominally the director, he 
was virtually the manager under Comte Bacciochi, the super- 
intendent of the Imperial theatres ; that is, the theatres 
which received a subsidy from the Emperor's civil list. The 
subscriber who wished to relinquish his box or seat, for how- 
ever short a time — of course without continuing to pay for 
it — forfeited all subsequent claim to it. In this instance, 
though, apart from the position of Baron James, the cause 
which prompted the application warranted an exception be- 
ing made ; still M. Perrin did not wish to act upon his own 
responsibility, and referred the matter to Comte Bacciochi, 
telling him at the same time that Comte Walewski would be 
glad to take the box during the interim. The latter had but 
recently resigned the Ministry of State by reason of an un- 
expected difficulty in the " Roman Question ; " * the ministe- 
rial box went, as a matter of course, with the appointment, 
and Comte Walewski regretted the loss of the former, which 
was one of the best in the house, more than the loss of the 
latter, and had asked his protege — M. Perrin owed his posi- 
tion at the Opera to him — to get him as good a one as soon 
as possible. 

It so happened that Comte Bacciochi had a grudge 
against Walewski for having questioned certain of his pre- 
rogatives connected with the superintendence of the Opera. 
The moment he heard of Walewski's wish, he --eplied, " M. 
de Morny applied to me several months since for a better 
box, and I see no reason why Comte Walewski should have 
it over his head." 

Vindictive like a Corsican, he laid the matter directly 
before the Emperor, and furthermore did his best to exas- 
perate the two postulants against one another. De Morny 
had the box ; Bacciochi had, however, succeeded so well that 
the two men were for a considerable time not on speaking 
terms. 

' Meanwhile the Mexican question had assumed a very 
serious aspect. In spite of his undoubted interest in the 



* If Comte Walewski ruled Napoleon III., the second Comtesse Walewska, 
who was an Italian by birth and very handsome, absolutely ruled her liusband. 
The first Comtesse Walewska was Lord Sandwich's dauLfhter. — Editor. 



278 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Jecker scheme, or probably because it had yielded all it was 
likely to yield, De Morny had of late been on the side of 
Walewski, who strongly counselled the withdrawal of the 
French troops. But the moment the incident of the opera- 
box cropped up, there was a change of front on his part. 
He became an ardent partisan for continuing the campaign, 
systematically siding against AValewski in everything, and 
tacitly avoiding any attempt of the latter to draw him into 
conversation. Walewski felt hurt, and gave up the attempt 
in despair. A little before this, Don Gutierrez de Estada 
had landed in Europe with a deputation of notable Mexicans 
to offer the crown to Maximilian. The latter made his ac- 
ceptance conditional on the despatch of twenty thousand 
French troops and the promise of a grant of three hundred 
millions of francs. 

In a council held at the Tuileries these conditions were 
unhesitatingly declined. " That was, if I am not mistaken, 
on a Saturday," said De Persigny; "and it was taken for 
granted that everythhig was settled. On Monday morning 
the council was hurriedly summoned to the Tuileries, and 
having to come from a good distance, Walewski arrived when 
it had been sitting for more than an hour. What had hap- 
pened meanwhile ? Simply this. Don Gutierrez had been 
informed of the decision of the Emperor's advisers, and 
Maximilian had been communicated with by telegraph to 
the same effect. On the Sunday morning the Archduke 
telegraphed to the Mexican envoy that unless his conditions 
were subscribed to in toto he should decline the honour. 
Don Gutierrez, determined not to return without a king, 
rushed there and then to De Morny's and offered him the 
crown. The latter immediately accepted, in the event of 
Maximilian persisting in his refusal. The Emperor was 
simply frantic with rage, but nothing would move De Morny. 
The only one who really had any influence over him was ' the 
other prince of the blood,' meaning Walewski, for, according 
to him, the real and legitimate Bonapartes counted for noth- 
ing. Walewski was telegraphed for, as I told you, early in 
the morning. When he came he found the council engaged 
in discussing the means of raising a loan. The Empress 
begged him to dissuade De Morny from his purpose, telliug 
him all I have told you. Walewski refused to be the first to 
speak to De Morny. I think that both Walewski and De 
Morny have heaped injury and insult upon me more than 



WALEWSKI. 279 

upon any man ; I would have obeyed the Empress for the 
Emperor's sake, but ' the two princes of the blood ' only con- 
sulted their own dignity. I need not tell you what effect the 
elevation of De Morny to the throne of Mexico would have 
produced in Europe, let alone in France. Rather than risk 
such a thing, the money was found ; Bazaine was sent, and 
that poor fellow, Maximilian, went to his death, because M. 
Bacciochi had sown dissension between the brother and the 
cousin of the Emperor about an opera-box. Such is history, 
my friend." 

I repeat, De Persigny was a better man at heart than 
De Morny, or perhaps than Walewski, though the latter had 
only fads, and never stooped to the questionable practices of 
his fellow " prince of the blood " in the race for wealth. 
The erstwhile sergeant-quartermaster refrained from doing 
so out of sheer contempt for money-hunters, and from an in- 
born feeling of honesty. The son of ^^apoleon L, though 
illegitimxate, felt what was due to the author of his being, and 
absolutely refused to be mixed up with any commercial trans- 
actions. He was never quietly insolent to any one, like the 
natural son of Hortense ; he rarely said either a foolish or a 
wise thing, but frequently did ill-considered ones, as, for in- 
stance, when he wrote a play. " What induced you to do 
this, monsieur le comte ? " said Thiers, on the first night; 
" It is so difficult to write a play in five acts, and it is so 
easy not to write a play in five acts." Among his fads was 
the objection to ladies in the stalls of a theatre. In 1861 he 
issued an order forbidding their admission to that part of the 
house, and could only be persuaded with difficulty, and at the 
eleventh hour, to rescind it. In many respects he was like 
Philip II. of Spain ; he worried about trifles. One day he 
prevailed upon M. de Boitelle, the Prefect of police, a thor- 
oughly sensible man, to put a stop to the flying of kites, be- 
cause their tails might get entangled in the telegraph wires, 
and cause damage to the latter. I happened to meet him on 
the Boulevards on the very day the edict was promulgated. 
He felt evidently very proud of the conception, and asked 
me what I thought of it. I told him the story of "the cow 
on the rails," according to Stephenson. Napoleon, when he 
heard of Walewski's reform, sent for Boitelle. " Here is an 
' order in council ' I want you to publish," he said, as serious- 
ly as possible. It was to the eifect that " all birds found 
perching on the wires would be fined, and, in default of pay- 



280 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

ment, imprisoned." Cariously enough, though a man of 
parts, and naturally intelligent, satire of that kind was lost 
upon him, for not very long after he prevailed upon M. de 
Boitelle to revive an obsolete order with regard to the length 
of the hackney-drivers' whips and the cracking thereof. It 
was M. Carlier, the predecessor of M. de Maupas, who had 
originally attempted a similar thing. He was rewarded with 
a pictorial skit representing him on the point of drowning, 
while cabby was trying to save him by holding out his whip, 
which proved too short for the purpose. 

Walewski had none of the vivacity of most of the Bona- 
partes. I knew him a good many years before, and after the 
establishment of the Second Empire, and have rarely seen 
him out of temper. I fancy he must have made an admirable 
ambassador with a good chief at his back; he, himself, I 
think, had little spirit of initiative, though, like a good many 
of us, he was fully convinced of the contrary. He was, to 
use the correct word, frequently dull; nevertheless, it was 
currently asserted and believed that he was the only man 
Rachel ever sincerely cared for. " Je comprends cela," said 
George Sand one day, when the matter was discussed in her 
presence ; " son commerce doit lui reposer Tesprit." 

It is worthy of remark that during the reign which suc- 
ceeded that of Louis-Philippe, the man who wielded the 
greatest power next to the Emperor was, in almost every re- 
spect but one, the mental and moral counterpart of " the 
citizen king.'- I am alluding to M. Eugene Rouher, some- 
times called the vice-emperor.* I knew Eugene Rouher 
some years before he was thought of as a deputy, let alone as 
a minister — when, in fact, he was terminating his law courses 
in the Quartier-Latin ; but not even the most inveterate Pum- 
blechook would have dared to advance afterwards that he 
perceived the germs of his future eminence in him then. He 
was a good-looking young fellow, in no way distinguished 
from the rest. He was a not unworthy ornament of " La 
Chaumiere," and did probably as much or as little poring 
over books as his companions. Still, there could be no doubt 
as to his natural intelligence, but the dunces in my immediate 
circle were very few. He was not very well off ; but, as I 

* It is equally curious to note, perhaps, that M. Grevy, who occupied the 
presidential chair of the Third Republic for a longer period than his two prede- 
cessors, was in many respects like Louis-Philippe, notably in his love of money. 
— Editok. 



EUGENE ROUHER. 281 

have said elsewhere, the Croesuses were also rare. At any rate, 
Eugene Rouher had entirely passed out of my recollection, 
and when, eleven or twelve years later, I saw his name in the 
list of Odilon Barrot's administration as Minister of Justice, I 
had not the remotest idea that it was the Eugene Rouher of 
my Quartier- Latin days. I am certain that a great many of our 
former acquaintances were equally ignorant, because, though 
I met several of them from time to time on the " fashionable 
side " of the Seine, I do not remember a single one having 
drawn my attention to him. It was only at one of the presi- 
dential receptions at the Elysee, in 1 850, that I became aware 
of the fact. He came up to me and held out his hand. " II 
me semble, monsieur, que nous nous sommes deja rencontres 
an Quartier-Latin," he said. Even then I was in the dark 
w^ith regard to the position he was fast assuming ; but the 
Prince-President himself enlightened me to a great extent in 
the course of the evening. "It appears that you and Rouher 
are old acquaintances," he said in English ; and on my nod- 
ding in the affirmative, he added, " If you were a Frenchman, 
and inclined to go in for politics, or even an Englishman in 
need of patronage or influence, I would advise you to stick to 
him, for he is a very remarkable man, and I fancy we shall 
hear a good deal of him within the next few years." I may, 
therefore, say without exaggeration that 1 was one of the first 
who had a trustworthy tip with regard to a comparatively 
" dark political horse," and from a tipster in whom by that 
time I was inclined to believe. 

Though I was neither " a Frenchman inclined to go in 
for politics," nor " even an Englishman in need of patronage 
or influence," my curiosity had been aroused ; for, I repeat, 
at the time of our first acquaintance I had considered Eugene 
Rouher a fairly intelligent young fellow ; but his intelligence 
had not struck me as likely to make a mark, at any rate so 
soon, seeing that he was considerably below forty when I met 
him at the Elysee. It is idle to assert, as the republicans 
have done since, that he gained his position by abandoning 
the political professions to Avhicli he owed his start in public 
life. Among the nine hundred deputies of the Second Re- 
public, there were at least a hundred intelligent so-called re- 
publicans ready and willing to do the same with the prospect 
of a far less signal reward than fell eventually to Rouher's lot. 

My curiosity was doomed to remain unsatisfied until two 
or three years later, when Rouher had already become a fix- 



282 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

tare in the political organization of the Empire. It was De 
Morny himself who gave me the particulars of Rouher's be- 
ginnings, and I have no reason to suppose that he painted 
them and the man in deliberately glowing colours, albeit that 
in one important crisis they acted in concert. Clermont- 
Ferrand was only about twelve miles from Eiom, Eouher's 
native town. I have already remarked that De Morny, at the 
time he met with his brother for the first time, was at the 
head of an important industrial establishment. It was at the 
former place; De Morny, therefore, was in a position to 
know. 

Eugene Rouher, it appears, like a good many men who 
have risen to political eminence, belonged to w^hat, for want 
of a better term, I may call the rural bourgeoisie — that is, 
the frugal, thrifty, hard-headed, small landowner, tilling his 
own land, honest in the main, ever on the alert to increase 
his own property by a timely bargain, with an intense love of 
the soil, with a kind of semi-Voltairean contempt for the 
clergy, an ingrained respect largely admixed with fear for 
" the man of the law," to which profession he often brings 
up his son in order to have what he likes most — litigation — 
for nothing. Rouher's grandfather was a man of that stamp ; 
he made an attorney of his son, and the latter established 
himself in the Rue Desaix, in a small, one-storied, uninviting- 
looking tenement, where, in the year 1814, Eugene Rouher 
was born.* Rouher's father was not very prosperous, yet he 
managed to send both his sons to Paris to study law. The 
elder son, much older than the future minister, had succeeded 
in getting a very good practice at the Riom bar, but he died 



* Before that it bore the name of the Eue des Trois-Hautbois, and in the 
heyday of the Second Empire it was changed into the Rue Eugene-Kouher. 
But at the fall oi' Sedan the indignation against the Emperor's powerful min- 
ister was so great that his carriages had to be removed from Riom lest they 
should be burned by the mob, and the street resumed its old appellation. In 
November, 1887, three years after Rouher's death, I happened to be at Clermont- 
Ferrand waiting for General Boulanger to go to Paris. I went over to Riom 
and had a look at the house. It was occupied by a carpenter or joiner, to 
whose father it had been sold years previously by the express wish of one of 
Eugene Rouher's daughters. I got into conversation with an intelligent inhab- 
itant of the town, who told me that on the 4th of September, 1870,"the feeling 
against Rouher was much stronger than against Louis- Napoleon himself, yet 
that feeling was an implied compliment to Rouher. "He was the cleverer of 
the two," the people shouted ■ " he ought not to have allowed the Emperor to 
engage in this war. He could have prevented it with one word." Neverthe- 
less, m a little while it abated, and Rouher was elected a member of the Na- 
tional Assembly. — Editok. 



HIS COURTSHIP. 283 

a short time before Eugene returned from Paris, leaving a 
widow and a son, who, of course, was too young to take his 
father's place. The young barrister, therefore, stepped into 
a capital ready-made practice, and being exceedingly amiable, 
bright, hard-working, and essentially honest, soon made a 
host of friends. 

"I have frequently found myself opposed to Rouher,'* 
said De Morny ; " but his unswerving loyalty to the Empire 
and the Emperor is beyond question. I should not w^onder 
but what he died poor.* 

"As you know, Eugene Rouher was really very hand- 
some. Mdlle. Conchon — that is Madame Rouher's maiden 
name — thought him the handsomest man in the world. 
True, her world did not extend beyond a few miles from 
Clermont-Ferrand ; but I fancy she might have gone further 
and fared worse. You know old Conchon, and the pride he 
takes in his son-in-law. Well, he would not hear of the 
marriage at first. Conchon was a character in those days. 
Though he had but a poor practice at the Clermont bar, he 
was clever ; and if he had gone to Paris as a journalist, in- 
stead of vegetating down there, I am sure he would have 
made his way. He was very fond of his classics — of Horace 
and Tibullus above all — and turned out some pretty Anacre- 
ontic verses for the local ' caveau ; ' for Clermont, like every 
other provincial centre, prided itself on its ' caveau.' f 

" A time came, however, when Conchon's fortunes took a 
turn for the better. You can form no idea of the political 
ignorance that prevailed in the provinces even as late as the 
reign of Louis-Philippe. Any measure advocated or pro- 
mulgated by the Government was sure to be received with 
suspicion by the populations as affecting their liberties, and, 
what was of still greater consequence to them, their property. 
The First Republic had given them license to despoil others ; 
any subsequent measure of the monarchies was looked upon 



* De Moray's prophecy turned out correct. M. Eugene Eouher died a poor 
man. There is a comic story connected with this poverty. At the beginning 
of the Republic, and during' the presidency of Thiers, Eouher's house was con • 
stantly watched l\v detectives. The weather was abominably bad; it rained 
constantly. Madame Eouher sent them some cotton mnbrellas, excusing her- 
self for not sending silk ones, because she could not afford it. — Editor. 

t The diminutive of " cave " (cellar). Eeally a gathering of poets and song- 
writers, which reached its highest reputation in Paris during the early part of 
the present century. The Saturday nights at the Savage Club are perhaps the 
nearest approach to it in London.— Editor. 



284 AX ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

by them as an attempt at reprisal. In 1842 a general census 
was ordered. You may remember the hostility it provoked 
in Paris ; it was nothing to its effect in the agricultural and 
wine-growing centres. The Kepublican wire-pullers spread 
the report that the census meant nothing but the thin end 
of the wedge of a bill for the duties upon wine to be paid by 
the grower. There was a terrible row in Clermont-Ferrand 
and the neighbourhood ; the ' Marseillaise ' had to make way 
for the still more revolutionary ' Q^a-ira.' Conchon was maire 
of Clermont-Ferrand, and he who was as innocent of all this 
as a new-born babe, had his house burned over his head. 
The Government argued that if the mob had burned the 
maire's dwelling in preference to that of the prefect, it was 
because the former was a more influential personage than 
the latter ; for there could be no other reason for their giving 
him the ' Legion of Honour,' and appointing him to a puisne 
judgeship on the bench of Riom, seeing that he had neither 
made an heroic defence of his property, nor endeavoured to 
carry out the provisions of the census bill by armed force. 
In fact, the latter step would have been an impossibility on 
Conchon's part. You and I know well enough how difficult 
it is to make Frenchmen hold their tongues by means of 
troops ; to endeavour to make them speak — in distinction to 
yelling — by similar means is altogether out of the question. 
You cannot take every head of a family, even in a compara- 
tively small town like Clermont-Ferrand, and put him be- 
tween two gendarmes to make him tell you his name, his 
age, and those of his family, I fancy, moreover, that Con- 
chon was not at Clermont at all when the mob made a bon- 
fire of his dwelling ; it was on a Sunday, and he had prob- 
ably gone into the country. At any rate, as I told you, they 
gave him the cross and a judgeship. It never rains but it 
pours. Contrary to the ordinary principles of French mobs 
of hating a man in proportion to his standing well with the 
Government, they started a subscription to indemnify Con- 
chon for the loss of his house, which subscription amounted 
to a hundred thousand francs. 

" Conchon had become a somebody, and refused to give 
his daughter to a mere provincial barrister now that he 
belonged to ' la magistrature assise.' * The young people 

* The term for the French bench, consistinof of jud^eres ; the parquet^ i. e. 
those to whom the public prosecution is confided, are called " la magistrature 



ROUHER AS A STATESMAN. 285 

were, however, very fond of one another, and had their way. 
They were a very handsome couple, and became the life and 
soul of the best society of Clermont-Ferrand, which, exclu- 
sive as it was, admitted them as they had admitted the 
widow of the elder brother. The younger Madame Rouher 
was by no means as sjorightly or as clever as she has become 
since. She was somewhat of a spoilt child, but her husband 
was a very brilliant talker indeed, though, unlike many 
brilliant talkers, there was not an ounce of spite in his 
cleverest remarks. The electors might have done worse 
than send him to Paris the first time he invited their suf- 
frages in '46, under the auspices of Guizot. Xevertheless, 
he was beaten by a goodly majority, and he had to wait 
until after the Revolution of February, when he was re- 
turned on the Republican list." 

So far De Morny. Consulting my personal recollections 
of Eugene Rouher, whom I still see now and then, I find 
nothing but good to say of him. I am not prepared to 
judge him as a politician, that kind of judgment being 
utterly at variance with the sjoirit of these notes, but I 
know of no French statesman whose memory will be en- 
titled to greater respect than Rouher's, with the exception, 
perhaps, of Guizot's. Both men committed grave faults, but 
no feeling of self-interest actuated them. The world is apt 
to blame great ministers for clinging to power after they 
have apparently given the greatest measure of their genius. 
They do not blame Harvey and Jenner for having continued 
to study and to practise after they had satisfactorily demon- 
strated, the one the theory of the circulation of the blood, 
the other the possibility of inoculation against small-pox ; 
they do not blame Milton for having continued to write after 
he had given " Paradise Lost," Rubens for having con- 
tinued to paint after he had given " The Descent from the 
Cross," Michael- Angelo for not having abandoned the sculp- 
tor's chisel after he had finished the frescoes of the Sistine 
Chapel. The bold stroke of policy that made England a 
principal shareholder in the Suez Canal, the Menai Bridge, 
the building of the Great \Yestern Railway, were achieve- 
ments of great men who had apparently given all there v\^as 

debout." As a rule, the latter have a great deal more talent than the former. 
" What are you going to do with your son ? " asked a gentleman of his friend. 
'' I am going to make a magistrate of him — ' debout,' if he is strong enough to 
keep on his legs ; ' assis,' if he be not." — Editor. 



28G ^N ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

in them to give ; why should Eouher have retired when he 
was barely fifty, and not have endeavoured to retrieve the 
mistake he evidently made when he allowed Bismarck to 
humiliate Austria at Sadowa, and to lay the foundations of a 
unified Germany ? Richelieu made mistakes also, but he re- 
trieved them before his death. 

Be this as it may, Eouher was both in public and private 
life an essentially honourable and honest man — as honest as 
Louis-Philippe in many respects, far more honest in others, 
and absolutely free from the everlasting preoccupation about 
money which marred that monarch's character. He was as 
disinterested as Guizot, and would have scorned the tergiver- 
sations and hypocrisy of Thiers. He never betrayed his 
master's cause ; he never consciously sacrificed his country to 
his pride. The only blame that can be laid to his charge is 
that he allowed his better sense to be overruled by a woman ; 
but that woman was the wife of his sovereign. 

He was, above all, a staunch friend to those who had 
known him in his early days. " There will be no Auvergnats 
left in Clermont-Ferrand and Riom if this goes on," said a 
witty journalist, seeing Rouher constantly surrounded by the 
natives of that particular province, to the exclusion of every 
one else. " We'll send an equal quantity of Parisians to Au- 
vergne ; it will do them good, and teach them to work," re- 
plied Rouher, when he heard of the remark. " And in 
another generation or two Paris will see what it has never 
seen before, namely, frugal Parisians, doing a day's labour 
for a day's wage, for we'll have their offspring back by then." 
For Rouher could be very witty when he liked, and never 
feared to hit out straight. He was a delightful talker, and, 
next to Alexandre Dumas, the best raconteur I have ever met. 
It was because he had a marvellous memory and a distinct 
talent for mimicr}^ Owing to this latter gift, he was unlike 
any other parliamentary orator I have ever heard. He would 
sit perfectly still under the most terrible onslaught of his 
opponents, whoever they were. No sign of impatience or 
weariness, not an attempt to take a note ; his eyes remained 
steadily fixed on his interlocutor, his arms folded across his 
chest. Then he would rise slowly from his seat and walk to 
the tribune, when there was one, take up the argument of 
his adversary, not only word for word, but with the latter's 
intonation and gestures, almost with the latter's voice — which 
used to drive Thiers wild — and answer it point by point. 



ROUHER'S GAME OP PIQUET. 287 

He used to call that " fair debating ; " in reality, it was 
the masterly trick of a great actor, who mercilessly wielded 
his power of ridicule ; but we must remember that he had 
originally been a lawyer, and that the scent of the French 
law-courts hung over him till the very end. " I am not always 
convinced of the honesty of my cause, but I hold a brief for 
the Government, and I feel convinced that it would not be 
honest to let the other party get the victory," he said. 

He was, and remained, very simple in his habits. He 
would not have minded entertaining his familiars every night 
of the week, but he did not care for the grand receptions he 
was compelled to give. He was very fond of the game of 
piquet. His father-in-law, who had been promoted to a 
judgeship in one of the Paris courts, had been a foeman 
worthy of his steel ; " but I am afraid," laughed Eouher, 
*'that his exaggerated admiration for me affects his play." 

Rouher was right ; M. Conchon was inordinately proud 
of his son-in-law. He lived, as it were, in the Minister of 
State's reflected glory. His great delight was to go shopping, 
in order to have the satisfaction of saying to the tradesmen, 
" You'll have this sent to my son-in-law, M. Rouher." The 
stir and bustle of the Paris streets confused him to the last, 
but he did not mind it, seeing that it afforded him an oppor- 
tunity of inquiring his way. " I want to get back to the 
Ministry of State — to my son-in-law, M. Rouher." It was 
not snoiibishness ; it was sheer unadulterated admiration of 
the man to wiiom he had somewhat reluctantly given his 
daughter. 



288 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Society durincr the Second Empire — The Court at Compiegne — The English 
element — ^Their opinion of Louis-Napoleon — The difference between the 
court of Louis-Philippe and that of Napoleon III. — The luggage of M. 
Villemain — The hunts in Louis-Philippe's time — Louis-Napoleon's advent 
— Would have made a better poet than an Emperor — Looks for a La Val- 
liere or Montespan, and finds iSIdlle. Eugenie de Montijo — The latter deter- 
mined not to be a La Valliere or even a Pompadour — Has her great destiny- 
foretold in her youth — Makes up her mind that it shall be realized by a 
right-handed aiid not a left-handed marriasre — Queen Victoria stands her 
sponsor among the sovereigns of Europe — Mdlle. de Montijo's mother — The 
Comtesse de Montijo and llalev^v's " Madame Cardinal" — The first invita- 
tions to Compiegne — Mdlle. de Montijo's backers for the Imperial stakes — 
No other entries — LouLs-Napoleou utters the word " marriage'" — What led 
up to it — The Emperor officially announces his betrothal — The effect it 

Produced — The Faubourg St.-Germain — Dupin the elder gives his views — 
'he engaged couple feel very uncomfortable — Negotiations to organize the 
Empress's future household — Rebuffs — Louis Napoleon's retorts — Mdlle. de 
Montijo's attempt at wit and sprightliness — Her iron will — Her beauty — 
Her marriage — bhe takes Marie-Antoinette for her model — She fondly 
imagines that she was born to rule — Siie presumes to teach Princess Clo- 
tilde the etiquette of courts — The story of two detectives — The hunts at 
Compiegne — Some of the mise en scene and dramatis ipersonai — The shoot- 
ing-parties — Mrs. Grundy not banished, but specially invited and drugged 
— The programme of the gatherings — Compiegne in the season — A story 
of an Englishman accommodated for the night in one of the Imperial lug- 
gage-vans. 

I WAS a frequent visitor to Compiegne throughout the 

Second Empire. I doubt whether, besides Lord H and 

myself, there was a single English guest there who went for 
the mere pleasure of going. Lords Palmerston, Cowley, and 
Clarendon, and a good many others whom I could name, had 
either political or private ends to serve. They all looked 
upon Napoleon III. as an adventurer, but an adventurer 
wliom they might use for their own purpose. I am afraid 
that the same charge might be preferred against persons in 
even a more exalted station. Prince Albert averred that 
Napoleon III. had sold his soul to the devil ; Lord Cowley, 
on being asked by a lady whether the Emperor talked much, 
replied, " No, but he always lies." Another diplomatist opined 
" that Napoleon lied so well, that one could not even believe 
the contrary of what he said." 



COMPIEGNE DURING THE SECOND EMPIRE. 289 

Enough. I went to the Com2:)icgne of Napoleon III., just 
as I had gone to the Compiegne of the latter years of Louis- 
Philippe — simply to enjoy myself ; with this dilference, how- 
ever, — that I enjoyed myself much better at the former than 
at the latter. Louis-Philippe's hospitality was very genuine, 
homely, and unpretending, but it lacked excitement — espe- 
cially for a young man of my age. The entertainments were 
more in harmony with the tastes of the Guizots, Cousins, and 
Villemains, who went down en redingote, and took little else ; 
especially the eminent professor and minister of public edu- 
cation, whose luggage consisted of a brown paper parcel, con- 
taining a razor, a clean collar, and the cordon of the Legion 
of Honour. There were some excellent hunts, organized by 
the Grand Veneur, the Comte de Girardin, and the Chief 
Kanger, the Baron de Larminat ; but the evenings, notwith- 
standing the new theatre built by Louis-Philippe, were fright- 
fully dull, and barely compensated for by the reviews at the 
camp of Compiegne, to which the King conducted his Queen 
and the princesses in a tapissiere and four, he himself driv- 
ing, the Due and Duchesse de Montpensier occupying the 
box seat, the rest of the family ensconced in the carriage, 
" absolument en bons bourgeois." With the advent of Louis- 
Napoleon, even before he assumed the imperial purple, a spirit 
of change came over the place Hortense's second son would 
probably have made a better poet than an emperor. His whole 
life has been a miscarried poem, miscarried by the inexorable 
demands of European politics. He dreamt of being L'Em- 
pereur-Soleil, as Louis XIV. had been Le Roi-Soleil. Visions 
of a nineteenth-century La Valliere or Montespan, hanging 
fondly on his arm, and dispelling the harassing cares of State 
by sweet smiles while treading the cool umbrageous glades of 
the magnificent park, haunted his brain. He would have 
gone as far as Louis le Bien-Aime, and built another nest for 
another Pompadour. He did not mean to make a Maintenon 
out of a Veuve 'Scarron, and, least of all, an empress out of a 
Mademoiselle Eugenie de Montijo. Mdlle. de Montijo, on 
the other hand, was determined not to be a Mdme. de Main- 
tenon, let alone a La Valliere or a Pompadour. At any rate, 
so she said, and the man most interested in putting her asser- 
tion to the test was too infatuated to do so. " Quand on ne 
s'attend a rien, la moindre des choses surprend." The proverb 
holds good, more especially where a woman's resistance is con- 
cerned. Mdlle. de Montijo was a Spaniard, or at least half a 

20 



290 ^^ ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Olio, and that lialf contained as much superstition as would 
have fitted out a score of her countrywomen of unmixed blood. 
One day in Granada, while she was sitting at her window, a 
gipsy, whose hand " she had crossed with silver," is said to 
have foretold her that she should be queen. The young girl 
])robably attached but little importance to the w^ords at that 
time; "but," said my informant, "from the moment Louis- 
Napoleon breathed the first jorotestations of love to her, the 
prophecy recurred to her in all its vividness, and she made 
up her mind that the right hand and not the left of Louis- 
Napoleon should set the seal upon its fulfilment." My in- 
formant was an Englishman, very highly placed, and dis- 
tinctly cm eourant of the private history of the Marquise de 
Montijo y Teba, as well as that of her mother. Without the 
least fear of being contradicted, I may say that the subsequent 
visit of Queen Victoria and Prince x\lbert was due to his di- 
rect influence. I will not go as far as to assert that Louis- 
Napoleon's participation in the Crimean war could not have 
been had at that moment at any other price, or that England 
could not have dispensed with that co-operation, but he, my 
informant, considei-ed then that the alliance would be more 
closely cemented by thui visit. Nor am I called upon to an- 
ticipate the final verdict of the social historian with regard 
to " that act of courtesy " on the part of the Queen of Eng- 
land, not the least justified boast of whose reign it is that she 
purified the morals of her court by her own example. Still, 
one may safely assume, in this instance, that the virtue of 
IMdlle. do Montijo would have been proof against the " bland- 
ishments of the future Emperor," even if she had not had 
the advice and countenance of her mother, whose Scotch 
blood would not have stood trifling with her daughter's affec- 
tions and reputation. But to make the fortress of that heart 
doubly impregnable, the Comtesse de Montijo scarcely ever 
left her second daughter's side. It was a great sacrifice on 
her part, because Mdlle. Eugenie de Montijo was not her 
favourite child ; that position was occupied by her elder, the 
Duchesse d'Albe. " Mais, on est mere, ou on ne Test pas?" 
says Madame Cardinal.* 

Mdlle. de Montijo, then, became the guiding spirit of the 



* The author ulludcs to the Maduine Cardinal of Ludovic Ilalevy, who se- 
questratt;s her dau'/hter because the baron, her would-be protector, is lianging 
back with the settleuieuts. — Euitok. 



LOUIS-NAPOLEON'S COURTSHIP. 291 

fetes afc the Elynee. She and her mother had travelled a great 
deal, so had Louis-Napoleon ; the latter not enough, appar- 
ently, to have learnt the wisdom of the French proverb, 
" Gare a la femme dont le berceau a ete une malle, et le pen- 
sionnat une table d'hote."' 

I have spoken elsewhere of the Coup d'Etat and of the 
company at the Elysee, immediately previous to it and after- 
wards ; early in 1852 — 

" The little done did vanish to the mind, 
Which forward saw how much remained to do." 

The Prince-President undertook a journey to the southern 
parts of France, which he was pleased to call " an interroga- 
tion to the country.^' It was that to a certain extent, only 
the country had been crammed with one reply to it, " Vive 
I'empereur." Calmly reviewing things from a distance of a 
quarter of a century, it was the best reply the nation could 
have made. " Society has been too long like a p3Tamid 
turned upside down. I replaced it on its base," said Louis- 
Napoleon, on the 29th of March, 1852, when he opened the 
first session of the Chambers, and inaugurated the new con- 
stitution wjiich was his own work. " He is right," remarked 
one of his female critics, " and now we are going to dance on 
the top of it. A quand les invitations?" 

The invitations were issued almost immediately after the 
journey just mentioned, and before the plebiscite had given 
the Prince- President the Imperial crown. One of the first 
was for a series of fetes at Compiegne. The chateau was 
got ready in hot haste ; but, of course, the " hunts " Avere 
not half so splendid as they became afterwards. 

The most observed of all the guests was Mdlle. de Mon- 
tijo, accompanied by her mother, but no one suspected for a 
single moment that the handsoQie Spanish girl Avho was gal- 
loping by Louis-Napoleon's side would be in a few months 
Empress of the French. Only a few know^ing ones ofi'ered 
to back her for the Imperial Stakes at any odds ; I took them, 
and, of course, lost heavily. This is not a figure of speech, 
but a literal fact. There were, however, no quotations " for 
a place," backers and bookies alike being agreed that she 
would be first or nowhere in the race. 

How it would have fared with the favourite had there 
been any other entries, it would be difficult to say, but there 
were none; the various European sovereigns declined the 



292 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

honour of an alliance with the house of Bonaparte, so Mdlle. 
Eugenie de Montijo simply walked over the course. One 
evening the rumour spread that Louis-Napoleon had uttered 
the magic word " marriage," in consequence of a violent fit 
of coughing which had choked the word "mistress" down 
his throat. Not to mince matters, the affair happened iri 
this way, and I speak on excellent authority. The day be- 
fore, there had been a hunt, and between the return from 
the forest and the dinner-hour, Napoleon had presented liim- 
self unannounced in Mdlle. de Montijo's apartment. Neither 
I nor the others who were at the chateau at the time could sat- 
isfactorily account for the prologue to this visit, but that there 
was such a prologue, and that it was conceived and enacted 
by at least two out of the three actors in the best spirit of 
the " comedie d'intrigue," so dear to the heart of Scribe, ad- 
mits of no doubt ; because, though the first dinner-bell had 
already rung, Mdlle. de Montijo was still in her riding-habit, 
consequently on the alert. Nay, even her dainty hunting-crop 
was within her reach, as the intruder found to his cost ; and 
reports were rife to the effect that, if the one had failed, the 
mother, who was in the next room, would have come to the 
rescue of her injured daughter. 

The Comtesse de Montijo was spared this act of heroism ; 
Lucrece herself sufficed for the task of defending her own 
honour : nevertheless, the mother's part was not at an end, 
even when the decisive word had been pronounced. Accord- 
ing to her daughter, she objected to the union, from a sincere 
regard for her would-be-son-in-law, from an all-absorbing 
love for her own darling. The social gulf between the two 
wjis too wide ever to be bridged, etc. " And though it will 
break my heart to have to obey her, I have no alternative," 
added Mdlle. de Montijo, if not in these selfsame words, at 
least in words to that effect. *' There remains but one hope. 
Write to her." 

And Louis- Napoleon did write. The letter has been re- 
ligiously preserved by the Montijo family. In less than three 
months afterwards France was officially or semi-officially ap- 
prised of the Emperor's intended union ; but, of course, the 
news had spread long before then, and a very varied effect it 
produced. Candidly speaking, it satisfied no one, and every 
one delivered judgment in two separate, if not different, ca- 
pacities — as private citizens and as patriotic Frenchmen. The 
lower classes, containing the ultra-democratic element, would 



THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS MARHIAGE. 293 

have perhaps applauded the bold departure from the old tra- 
ditions that had hitherto presided at sovereign unions, if the 
bride had been French, instead of being a foreigner. They 
were sensible enough not to expect their new Emperor to 
choose from the bourgeoisie ; but, in spite of their prejudices 
against the old noblesse, they would, in default of a princess 
of royal blood, have liked to see one of that noblesse's daugh- 
ters share the Imperial throne. They were not deceived by 
Napoleon's specious argument that France had better assume 
openly the position of a parvenu rather than make the new 
principle of the unrestricted suffrage of a great nation pass 
for an old one by trying to introduce herself at any cost into 
a family of kings. 

The bourgeoisie itself was more disgusted still. Incred- 
ible as it may seem, they did resent Napoleon's slight of their 
daughters. " A defaut d'une princesse de sang royal, une de 
nos tilles eut fait aussi bien qu'une etrangere, dont le grand 
pere, apres tout, etait negociant comme nous. Le premier 
empire a ete fait avec le sang de gar9ons d'ecurie, de tonnel- 
liers ; le second empire aurait pu j^rendre un peu de ce sang 
sans se mesallier." The bourgeois Voltairien was more biting 
in his sarcasm. In his speech to the grand officers of State 
and corporations. Napoleon had alluded to Empress Jospehine : 
" France has not forgotten that for the last seventy years 
foreign princesses have only ascended the steps of the throne 
to see their race scattered and proscribed, either by war or 
revolution. One woman alone appears to have brought the 
people better luck, and to have left a more lasting impression 
on their memory, and that woman, the modest and kindly 
wife of Greneral Bonaparte, was not descended from royal 
blood." Then, speaking of the empress that was to be, he 
concluded, " A good and pious Catholic, she will, like myself, 
offer up the same prayers for the welfare and happiness of 
France ; I cherish the firm hope that, gracious and kind as 
she is, she will, while occupying a similar position, revive 
once more the virtues of Josephine." All of which refer- 
ences to the undoubtedly skittish widow of General de Beau- 
harnais made the satirically inclined bourgeois, who knew 
the chronique scandaleuse of the Directoire quite as well as 
Louis-Napoleon, sneer. Said one, " It is a strange present 
to put into a girl's trousseau, the virtues of Josephine ; the 
Nessus-shirt given to Hercules was nothing to it." 

The Faubourg St.-Germain made common cause for once 



294 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

with the Orleanists salons, which were avenging the confisca- 
tion of the princes' property ; and both, if less brutal than 
the speaker just quoted, were not less cruel. The daughter 
had to bear the brunt of the mother's reputation. Public 
securities went down two francs at tlie announcement of the 
marriage. There was but one man who stood steadfast by 
the Emperor and his bride, Dupin the elder ; but his ironical 
defence of the choice was nearly as bad as his opposition to 
it could have been. " People care very little as to what I say 
and think, and perhaps they are right," he remarked ; " but 
still, the Emperor acts more sensibly by marrying the woman 
he likes than by eating humble-pie and bargaining for some 
strait-laced, stuck-up German princess, with feet as large 
as mine. At any rate, when he kisses his wife, it will be be- 
cause he feels inclined, and not because he feels compelled." * 

Nevertheless, amidst all this flouting and jeering, the 
Emperor and his future consort felt very uncomfortable, but 
they showed a brave front. He inferred, rather than said to 
one and all who advanced objections, that his love for Mdlle. 
de Montijo was not the sole motive for his contemplated 
union. He wished to induce them into the belief that po- 
litical motives were not foreign to it — that he was, as it 
were, flinging the gauntlet to monarchical Europe, which, not 
content with refusing him a wife, was determined to throw a 
spoke in his matrimonial wheel. 

Unfortunately, he and his bride felt that they could not 
altogether dispense with the pomp and circumstance of 
courts. Like his uncle. Napoleon III. was exceedingly fond 
of grand ceremonial display, and he set his heart upon his 
Empress having a brilliant escort of fair and illustrious 
women on the day of her nuptials. To seek for such an 
escort among the grandes dames of the old noblesse would, 
he knew, be so much waste of time ; but he was justified in 
the hope that the descendants of those who owed some of 
their titles and most of their fortunes to his uncle would 
prove more amenable. In this he was mistaken : both the 
Duchesse de Vicence and the Duchesse des Lesparres, besides 
several others to whom the highest positions in the Empress's 

* Dupm's feet were enormous, and, furthermore, invariably shod in thick, 
hobnailed bluchers. He himself was always jestiuirly alluding to them; and 
one day, on the occasion of a funeral of a friend, which he could not possibly 
attend," he su^-gested sending his boots instead. " People send their empty con- 
veyance : I'll send mine," he said. — Editor. 



SOME EPIGRAMS OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 295 

household were offered, declined the honour. The Due de 
Bassano did worse. Much as the De Caulaincourts and the De 
Lesparres owed to the son of the Corsican lawyer, the Marets 
owed him infinitely more. Yet their descendant, but a few 
days before the marriage, went about repeating everywhere 
that he absolutely objected to see his wife figure in the suite 
of the daughter of the Comtesse de Montijo, " who " (the 
daughter) " was a little too much of a posthumous child." 
He not only relented with regard to the duchesse at the 
eleventh hour, but accepted the office of Grand Chambellan, 
which office he filled to the end of his life. 

In fact, honours and titles went absolutely a-begging iu 
those days. Let me not be misunderstood. There were 
plenty of men and women ready to accept both, and to deck 
out their besmirched, though very authentic, scutcheons 
with them ; but of these the Empress, at any rate, would 
have none. She would have willingly thrown overboard the 
whole of her family with its doubtful antecedents, which 
naturally identified it with that brilliant and cosmopolitan 
society, " dans laquelle en fait d'hommes, il n'y a que des 
declasses, et en fait de femmes que des trop-bien classees." 
The Bonapartes themselves had, after all, a by no means 
cleaner bill of health, but, as usual, the woman was made the 
scapegoat ; for though a good many men of ancient lineage, 
such as the Prince Charles de Beauveau, the Due de Crillon, 
the Due de Beauveau-Oraon, the Due de Montmorency, the 
Marquis de Larochejaquelein, the Marquis de Gallifet, the 
Due de Mouchy, etc., rallied to the new regime, most of them 
refused at first to bring their wives and daughters to the 
Tuileries, albeit that they went themselves. When a man 
neglects to introduce his womenkind to the mistress of the 
house at which he visits, one generally knows the opinion he 
and the world entertain — rightly or wrongly — of the status 
of the lady ; and the rule is supposed to hold good every- 
where throughout civilized society. Yet the Emperor tol- 
erated this. 

Knowing what I do of Napoleon's private character, I am 
inclined to think that, but for dynastic and political reasons, he 
would have willingly dispensed with the rigidly virtuous 
woman at the Tuileries, then and afterwards. But at that 
moment he was perforce obliged to make advances to her, and 
the rebuffs received in consequence were taken with a sang- 
froid which made those who administered them wince more 



296 AN ENGLISHMAN IX PARIS. 

than once. At each renewed refusal he was ready with an 
epigram : " Encore nne dame qui n'est pas assez sure de son 
passe pour braver I'opinion publique ; " " Celle-la, c'est la 
femme de Cesar, hors de tout soup9on, comme il y a des 

criminels qui sont hors la loi ; " "Madame de ; il n'y a 

pas de faux pas dans sa vie, il n'y a qu'un faux papa, le pere 
de ses enfants." 

For Louis-Napoleon could be exceedingly witty when he 
liked, and his wit lost nothing by the manner in which he 
delivered his witticisms. Not a muscle of his face moved — 
he merely blinked his eyes. 

" Si on avait voulu me donner une princesse allemande," 
he said to his most intimate friends, " je I'aurais epousee : si 
je ne I'avais pas autant aimee que j'aime Mademoiselle de 
Montijo, j'aurais au moins ete plus sur de sa betise; avecune 
£spagnole on n'est jamais sur." 

Whether he meant the remark for his future consort or 
not, I am unable to say, but Mademoiselle de Montijo was 
not witty. There was a kittenish attempt at wit now and 
then, as when she said, " Ici, il n'y a que moi de legitimiste ; " 
but intellectually she was in no way distinguished from the 
majority of her countrywomen.* On the other hand, she 
had an iron will, and was very handsome. A woman's beauty 
is rarely capable of being analyzed ; he who undertakes such 
a task is surely doomed to the disappointment of the boy who 
cut the drum to find out where the noise came from. 

I cannot say wherein Mdlle. de Monti jo's beauty lay, but 
she was beautiful indeed. 

Her iron will ably seconded the Emperor's attempts at 
gaining aristocratic recruits round his standard, and when 
the Due de Guiche joined their ranks — the Due de Guiche 
whom the Duchesse d'Angouleme had left close upon forty 
thousand pounds a year — Mdlle. de Montijo might well be 
elated with her success. Still, at the celebration of her nup- 
' tials, the gathering was not le dessus du panier. The old 
noblesse had the right to stay away ; they had not the right 
to do what they did. I am perfectly certain of my facts, else 
I should not have committed them to paper. 



* Merirnee, the author of "Carmen," who knew somethinof of Spanish 
■women, and of the female membei's of the Montijo family in particular, said 
that God had given them the choice between love and wit, and that they had 
chosen the former. — Editor. 



THE EMPRESS AND PRINCESS CLOTILDE. 297 

As usual, on the day of the ceremony, portraits of the new 
Empress and her biography were hawked about. There w{ s 
nothing offensive in either, because the risk of printing any- 
thing objectionable would have been too great. In reality, 
the account of her life was rather too laudatory. But there 
was one picture, better executed than the rest, which bore tlie 
words, '-''The iiortrait and the virtues of the Emjwess ; the 
whole for two sous ; " and that was decidedly the work of the 
Legitimists and Orleanists combined. I have ample proof of 
what I say. I heard afterwards that the lithograph had been 
executed in England. 

For several months after the marriage nothing was spoken 
or thought of at the Tuileries but rules of precedence, court 
dresses, the revival of certain ceremonies, functions and en- 
tertainments that used to be the fashion under the ancien 
regime. The Empress was especially anxious to model her 
surroundings, her v.ode of life, upon those of Marie-Antoi- 
nette, — " mon type," as she familiarly called the dciughter of 
Marie-Therese. If, in fact, after a little while, some one had 
been ill-advised enough to tell her that she had not been born 
in the Imperial purple, she would have scarcely believed it. 
When a daughter of the House of Savoy had the misfortune 
to marry Napoleon's cousin, the Empress thought fit to give 
the young princess some hints as to her toilette and sundi-y 
other things. " You appear to forget, madame," was the an- 
swer, " that I was born at a court." Empress Eugenie was 
furious, and never forgave Princess Clotilde. Her anger re- 
minds me of that of a French detective who, having been 
charged with a very important case, took up his quarteis 
with a colleague in one of the best Paris hotels, exclusively 
frequented by foreigners of distinction. He assumed the 
role of a retired ambassador, his comrade enacted the part of 
his valet, and both enacted them to perfection. For a fort- 
night or more they did not make a single mistake in their 
parts. The ambassador was kind but distant to his servant, 
the latter never omitted to address him as " Your Excel- 
lency." When their mission was at an end, they returned to 
their ordinary duties; but the "ambassador" had become so 
identified with his part that, on his colleague addressing him 
in the usual way, he turned round indignantly, and exclaimed, 
" You seem to forget yourself. What do vou mean by such 
familiarity?" 

Of air the entertainments of the ancien regime lending 



293 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

themselves to sumptuary and scenic display, " la chasse " was 
undoubtedly the one most likely to appeal to the Imperial 
couple. Louis-Xapoleon had, at any rate, the good sense not 
to attempt to rival Le Roi-Soleil in spectacular ballet, or to 
revive the Eglinton tournament on the Place du Carrousel. 
But— 

" II ne fallait au fier Romain 

Que des spectacles et du pain ; 

Mais aux Fran^ais, plus que Romain, 

Le spectacle suffit sans pain." 

No one was better aware of this tendency of the Parisian 
to be dazzled by court pageants than the new Emperor, but 
he was also aware that, except at the risk of making himself 
and his new court ridiculous, some sort of raison d'etre would 
have to be found for such open-air displays in. the capital; 
pending the invention of a plausible pretext, "les grandes 
chasses " at Compiegne were decided upon. They were to be 
tlifferent from what they had been on the occasion referred 
to above : special costumes were to be worn, splendid horses 
purchased ; the most experienced kennel and huntsmen, im- 
bued with all the grand traditions of "la Vencrie," recruited 
from the former establishments of the Condes and Rohans ; 
— in short, such eclat was to be given to them as to make 
them not only the talk of the whole of France, but of Europe 
besides. The experiment was worth trying. Compiegne was 
less than a hundred miles from Paris ; thousands would flock, 
not only from the neighbouring towns, but from the capital 
also, and the glowing accounts they would be sure to bring 
back would produce their effect. There would be, moreover, 
less risk of incurring the remarks of an irreverent Paris mob, 
a mob which instinctively finds out the ridiculous side of 
every ceremonial instituted by the court, except those calcu- 
lated to gratify its love of military pomp and splendour. As 
yet, it was too early to belie the words, " L'empire, c'est la 
paix; " we had not got beyond the "tame eagle" period, 
albeit that those behind the scenes, among others a near con- 
nection of mine, who was more than half a Frenchman him- 
self, predicted that the predatory instincts would soon reveal 
themselves, against the Russian bear, probably, and in con- 
junction with the British lion, — if not in conjunction with 
the latter, perhaps against him. 

At any rate, les grandes chasses et fetes de Compiegne 
formed the first item of that programme of " La France qui 



FETES AT CAMPIEGXE. 299 

s'amuse," — a programme and play which, for nearly eighteen 
years, drew from all parts of the civilized world would-be 
critics and spectators, few of whom perceived that the theatre 
was undermined, the piece running to a fatal denoument, and 
the bill itself the most fraudulent concoction that had ever 
issued from the sanctum of a bogus impressario. But had 
not Lamar tine, only a few years previously, suggested, as it 
were, the tendency of the piece, when, in the Chamber of 
Deputies, he said, " Messieurs, j'ai I'honneur et le regret de 
vous avertir que la France s'ennuie " ? Louis-Napoleon was 
determined that no such reproach should be made during his 
reign. He probably did not mean his firew^orks to end in the 
conflagration of Bazeilles, and to read the criticism on his own 
drama at Wilhelmshohe, but he should have held a tighter 
hand over his stage-managers. Some of these were now get- 
ting their reward for having contributed to the efficient rep- 
resentation of the prologue, which one might entitle " the 
Coup d'Etat." General Magnan was appointed grand veneur 
— let us say, master of the buckhounds, — with a stipend of a 
hundred thousand francs ; Comte Edgar Ney, his chief coad- 
jutor, with forty thousand francs. History sees the last of 
the latter gentleman on a cold, dull, drizzly September morn- 
ing, of the year 1870. He is seated in an open char-a-bancs, 
by the side of some Prussian officers, and the vehicle, in the 
rear of that of his Imperial master, is on its way to the Bel- 
gian frontier, en route for Cassel. He is pointing to some 
artillery which, notwithstanding its French model, is being 
driven by German gunners. "A qui ces canons-la?" "lis 
ne sont pas des notres, monsieur," is the courteous and guard- 
ed reply. Verily, his father's exit, after all is said and done, 
was a more dignified one. Michel Ney, at any rate, fell 
pierced by bullets ; the pity was that they were not the ene- 
my's. In addition to the grand veneur and premier veneur, 
there were three lieutenants de venerie, a capitaine des chasses 
a tir, — whom we will call a sublimated head-gamekeeper ; — 
and all these dignitaries had other emoluments and charges 
besides, because Louis-Xapoleon, to his credit be it said, never 
forgot a friend. 

The whole of the " working personnel " was, as I have 
already said, recruited from the former establishments of the 
Condes at Chantilly, of the late Due d'Orleans, the Dues de 
Nemours and d'Aumale ; and such men as La Feuille, whose 
real name was Fergus, and La Trace could not have failed to 



300 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

make comparisons between their old masters and the new 
not always to the advantage of the latter. For though the 
spectacle was magnificent enough, there was little or no hunt- 
ing, as far as the majority of the guests were concerned 
Atter a great deal of deliberation, dark green cloth, with crim- 
son velvet collars, cuffs, and facings, and gold lace, had been 
adopted. In Louis X V.'s time, and in that of the latter Bour- 
bons, the colour had been blue with silver lace ; but for this 
difterence the costume was virtually the same, even to the 
buckskins, jackboots, and the "lampion," also ed^ed with 
gold instead of silver.* The Emperor's and Empress's had 
a trimming of white ostrich-feathers. The dress could not 
be worn however, by any but the members of the Impeiial 
household, without special permission. The latter, of course, 
wore It by right; but even men like the Due de Vicence, the 
Baron d Offremont, the Marquis de Gallifet, the Marquis de 
Oadore, women like the Comtesse de Pourtales, the Comtesse 
de Brigode, the Marquise de Contades, who held no special 
charge at court, had to receive " le bouton " before thev could 
don it.f ^ 

The locale of these gatherings differed according to the 
seasons Fontamebleau was chosen for the spring ones, but 
throughout the reign Compiegne always offered the most 
brilliant spectacle, especially after the Crimean war, when 
JNapoleon III. was tacitly admitted to the family circle of the 
crowned heads of Europe. The shooting-parties were a trib- 
ute offered to the taste of the English visitors, who, after 
tnat period, became more numerous everv succeeding autumn, 
and who, accustomed as they were to their own magnificent 
meets and lavish hospitality at the most renowned country 
seats, could not help expressing their surprise at the utterly 
reckless expenditure ; and, if the truth must be told, enjoyed 
the freedom from all restraint, though it was cunningly hid- " 
den beneath an apparently very formidable code of courtly 
etiquette. As one of these distinguished Englishmen said, 
"They have done better than banish Mrs. Grundv; they have 
given her a special invitation, and drugged her the moment 
she came in." 



* The lampion was the three-cornered hat, cocked on all sides alike in the 
shape of a spout, and stitfened with wire.— Editor. 

_ t '' Wearing the king's button " is a verv^ old French sporting term, signify- 
ing permission to wear the dress or the buttons or both, similar 'to those of tlie 
monarch when followmg the hounds.— Editor 



COMPIEG>'E IN THE SEASON. 301 

The Court invariably arrived on the first of November, 
and generally stayed for three weeks or a month, according 
to the date fixed for the opening of the Chambers. From 
that moment the town, a very sleepy though exceedingly 
pretty one, became like a fair. Unless you had engaged your 
room beforehand at one of the hotels, the chances were a 
thousand to one in favour of your having to roam the streets ; 
tor there were hundreds and hundreds of sight-seers, French 
as well as foreign, desirous of following the hounds, which 
every one was free to do. In addition to these, many func- 
tionaries, not sufficientlv important to be favoured with an 
invitation to the Chc4teau, but eager for an opportunity of 
attracting the notice of the sovereign — for Napoleon was a 
very impulsive monarch, who often took sudden fancies — 
had to be accommodated, not to mention flying columns of 
the demi-monde, " pas trop bien assurees sur la fidelite de 
leurs protecteurs en-titre et voulant les sauvegarder centre les 
attaques de leurs rivales dans I'entourage imperial." What 
with these and others, a room, on the top story, was often 
quoted at sixty or seventy francs per day. I know a worthy- 
lieutenant of the cavalry of the Garde who made a pretty 
sum, for two years running, by engaging three apartments at 
each of the five good hotels, for the whole of the Emperor's 
stay. His regiment was quartered at Compiegne, and, as a 
matter of course, his friends from Paris applied to him. 

An amusing incident happened in connection with this 
scarcity of accommodation. The French railways in those 
days got a great many of their rails from England. The 
representative of one of these English makers found out, 
however, that the profits on his contracts were pretty well be- 
ing swallowed up by the baksheesh he had to distribute 
among the various government officials and others. In his 
perplexity, he sought advice of an English nobleman, who 
had his grandes et petites entre esto the Tuileries, and the 
latter promised to get him an audience of the Emperor. It 
so happened that the Court was on the eve of its departure, 
but Napoleon wrote that he would see the agent at Com- 
piegne. On the day appointed, the Englishman came. Hav- 
ing made up his mind to combine pleasure with business, he 
had brought his portmanteau in order to stay for a day or so. 
Previous to the interview he had applied at every hotel, at 
every private house where there was a chance of getting a 
room, but without success. His luggage was in a cab on the 



302 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Place du Chateau. Napoleon was, as usual, very kind, prom- 
ised him his aid, but asked him to let the matter rest until 
the next day, when he would have an opportunity of consult- 
ing a high authority on the subject who Avas coming down 
that very afternoon. " Give me your address, and I will let 
you know, the first thing in the morning, when I can see 
you," said the Emperor in English. 

The Englishman looked very embarrassed. " I have no 
address, sire. I have been unable to get a room anywhere," 
he replied. 

"Oh, I dare say we can put you up somewhere here," 
laughed the Emperor, and called to one of his aides-de-camp, 
to whom he gave instructions. 

The Englishman and the officer departed together, but 
the Chateau was quite as full as the rest of the town. 

" I'll ask Baptiste," said the officer at last, having tried 
every possible means. 

Baptiste was one of the Emperor's principal grooms, and 
very willing to help ; but, alas ! he had only a very small room 
himself, and that was shared by his wife. 

" If monsieur don't mind," said Baptiste, " I will make 
him up a good bed in one of the fourgons " — one of the lug- 
gage-vans. 

So said, so done. The Englishman slept like a top, being 
very tired, — too much like a top, for he never stirred until 
he found himself rudely awakened by a heavy bundle of rugs 
and other paraphernalia being flung on his chest. He was 
at the station. Baptiste had simply forgotten to mention 
the fact of his having transformed the fourgon into a bed- 
room ; the doors that stood ajar during the night had been 
closed without the servant looking inside ; and when the 
occupant was discovered he was, as Kacine says — 

" Dans le simple appareil 
D'une beaute qu'on vient d'arracher an sommeil." 

AVhen he told the Emperor, the latter laughed, "as he had 
never seen him laugh before," said the aide-de-camp, who 
had been the innocent cause of the mischief by appealing to 
Baptiste. 

The victim of the misadventure did not mind it much. 
For many years afterwards, he averred that the sight of Com- 
piegne in those days would have compensated for the incon- 
venience of sleeninor on a garden seat. What was more., he 



A NOVEL BEDROOM. 303 

and his firm were never troubled any more with inexorable 
demands for baksheesh. 

He was right ; the sight of Compiegne in those days was 
very beautifuh There was a good deal of the histrionic 
mixed up with it, but it was very beautiful. In addition to 
the bands of the garrison, a regimental band of the infantry 
of the Garde played in the courtyard of the Chateau ; the 
streets were alive with crowds dressed in their best ; almost 
every house was gay with bunting, the only exceptions being 
those of the Legitimists, who, unlike Achilles, did not even 
skulk in their tents, but shut up their establishments and flit- 
ted on the eve of the arrival of the Court, after having de- 
spatched an address of unswerving loyalty to the Comte de 
Chambord. After a little while, Xapoleon did not trouble 
about these expressions of hostility to his dynasty, though he 
could not forbear to ask bitterly, now and then,\vhether the 
Comte de Chambord or the Comte de Paris under a regency 
could have made the country more prosperous than he had 
attempted to do, than he succeeded in doing. And truth 
compels one to admit that France's material prosperity was 
not a sham in those days, whatevei else may have been ; for 
in those days, as I have already remarked, the end was still 
distant, and there were probably not a thousand men in the 
whole of Europe who foresaw the nature of it, albeit that a 
thirtieth or a fortieth part of them may have been in Com- 
piegne at the very time when the Emperor, in his elegantly 
appointed break, drove from the Place du Chateau amidst 
the acclamations of the serried crowds lining the roads. 

On the day of the arrival of the Emperor — the train 
reached Compiegne about four — there was neither dinner- 
party nor reception at the Chateau. The civil and military 
authorities of Compiegne went to the station to welcome the 
Imperial couple, the rangers of Compiegne and Laigue forests 
waited upon his Majesty to arrange the programme, and 
generally joined the Imperial party at dinner ; but the fetes 
did not commence until the second day after the arrival, i. e. 
with the advent of the first batch of guests, who reached the 
Chateau exactly twenty-four hours after their hosts. 



AX ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Society during the Empire-The series of guests at Compie?ne-The ainuse- 
ments-the absence of musical taste in the Bonapartes-The programme 
on the first, second, third, and fourth days-An anecdote of Lafontaine, the 
actor— Theatrical perfonnances and balls— The expenses of the same— The 
theatre at. Compiegne-Tlie guests, male and female-" Neck or nothin.^" 
lor the latter, uniform for the former-The rest have to take " back seats ''1- 
tli'!iT ^^ ^T ""S ^"^'"H ''^"^ong the notabilities of Compi^gne-A mayorV^ 
troubles— The Empress's and the Emperor's conflicting opinions with re- 
gard to female charms— Bassano in "hot water "—Tactics of the demi- 
mondames-Improvement from the heraldic point of view in the Empress's 
entourage-The cocpdettes-Their dress-Worth- Wiien every pretext for 
a change of toilette is exhausted, the court ladies turn themselves into bal- 
Swr T^^^^'^^je a Quatre" at Compiegne-The ladies appear at the 
ba afterwards in their gauze skirts-The Emperor's dictum witli regard to 
ballet-dancers and men's infatuation for them -The Emperor did not like 
stupid women-The Emperor's " eye " for a handsome woman-The Em- 
press does not admire the instinct- William I. of Prussia acts as comforter 
^ii'*" hunt-Actors, _ -supers," and spectators-" La Comtesse d'Escar- 
bagnas -Tlie Iinperial proeession-The Empress's and Emperor's un- 
ErS^ •^'Tt''"/';^.?P^l'°'', ""^^ "well-dressed man "-The Empress 
wished to get back belore dark -The reason of this wish-Though unpinct- 
ual, punctual on hunt-days-The police measures at those gatfierhuSTM 
Ji^-nri^'^'H ^^- B°'t^ll^-The Empress did not like the truth, the Em- 
peror did— Her anxiety to go to St. Lazare. 

The gnests were divided into five series, each of which 
stayed four days exchisive of the day of their arrival and that 
ot their departure. Each series consisted of between eio-htv 
and ninety guests. ^ 

The amusements provided were invariably the same for 
each series of guests. On the dav of their arrival there was 
the dinner, followed by charades, and a carpet dance to the 
accompaniment of the piano— or, to speak bv the card, of the 
piano-organ. It was an instrument similar to that which 
nowadays causes so much delight to the children in the 
streets of London, and, as far as I can remember, the first of 
Its kind I had ever seen. The male guests, and not alwavs 
the youngest, relieved one another in turning the handle. 
Mechanical as was the task, it required a certain ear for time, 
and they were often found sadly wanting in that respect. It 



THE SERIES OF GUESTS AT COMPIEGNE. 305 

was rather comical to see a grave minister of State solemnly 
grinding out tunes, and being called to task every now and. 
again for his incapacity. The worst offender, the most hope- 
less performer, was undoubtedly the Emperor himself. The 
Bonapartes are one and all devoid of the slightest taste for 
music. I think it is De Bourrienne — but I will not be cer- 
tain — who speaks of the founder of the dynasty humming as 
he went along from one apartment to another. " Et Dieu 
salt comme il chantait faux," adds the chronicler in despair. 
That part of the great man's mantle had decidedly fallen 
upon his nephew. I remember the latter trying to distin- 
guish himself on that piano-organ one evening. M. de Mau- 
pas, who was the prefect of police at the time of the Coup 
d'Etat, and minister of police afterwards, was among the 
guests. The ambulant musician in Paris has to get a kind 
of licence from the prefecture of police, the outward, sign of 
which is a brass badge, which he is bound to wear suspended 
from his button-hole. While the Emperor was trying to 
make the company waltz, one of the ladies suddenly turned 
round to M. de Maupas : " Si jamais Pempereur vous demande 
la permission de jouer dans la rue, refusez lui, monsieur ; re- 
fusez lui, pour Pamour du ciel et de la musique," she said 
aloud : and the Emperor himself could not help smiling at 
the well-deserved rebuke. " Madame," he replied, " if ever I 
am reduced to such a strait, I will take you into partnership : 
I will make you sing, and I will collect the pence." In spite 
of his musical deficiencies the Emperor was right ; the lady 
was Madame Conneau, who had and has still one of the most 
beautiful voices ever heard on the professional or amateur 
stage. 

On the first day following that of the arrival of the guests, 
there was a shooting-party, or, rather, there were two — one 
in the home park for the Emperor himself, who was not a 
bad shot, and a dozen of the more important personages ; 
another in the forest. Those who did not care for sport 
were at liberty to remain with the ladies, who, under the di- 
rection of the Empress, proceeded to the lawn. Croquet, as 
far as I know, had not been invented then, but archery lent 
itself to posing and flirtation quite as well, and the costumes 
worn on such occasions were truly a sight for the gods. 

On the evening of that day, there was a performance in 
the theatre, built for the express purpose by Louis-Philippe, 
but which had been considerably embellished since. The 

21 



306 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

companies of the Oomedie-Fraii9aise, the Odeon, the Gym- 
nase, the Vaudeville, and the Palais-Royal took it in turns. 
Only the members of the Comedie-FrauQaise had the privi- 
lege of paying their respects in the Imperial box. It was 
during one of the performances of the Gymnase company 
that the following amusing incident occurred. They were 
playing " Le Fils de Famille " of Bayard and De Bieville,* 
and the Emperor was strolling in the lobbies before the per- 
formance, when he noticed an old colonel of lancers, whom 
he did not remember to have seen among the guests during 
the daytime, but who seemed perfectly at home. He had 
not even donned his full regimentals. 

" Voila uu vrai, beau militaire," said the sovereign to one 
of his aides-de-camp ; " allez demander son nom." 

The aide-de-camp returned in a moment. " II s'appelle 
Lafontaine, sire ; et il appartient au regiment du Gymnase." 
" Comment, au regiment du Gymnase ? " 
" Mais oui, sire ; c'est Lafontaine, le comedien." 
In fact, the assumption was so thoroughly realistic, that 
even a better judge than Louis-Napoleon might have been 
deceived by it. 

Those performances were really most brilliant affairs, and 
an invitation to them was only less highly prized than that 
to the ball which always followed the play on November loth, 
the Empress's fete-day. f The cost of each performance was 
estimated at between twenty and thirty thousand francs, ac- 
cording to the company performing. I am repeating the 
official statement, though inclined to think it somewhat ex- 
aggerated. Except the Opera or Opera- Comique, there was 
not then, nor is there now, a theatre in Paris whose nightly 
receipts, with " the greatest success," exceed seven or eight 
thousand francs. Allowing for an additional three thousand 
francs for railway travelling and sundry expenses, I fail to 
see how the remainder of the sum was disbursed, unless it 
was in douceurs to the performers. There is less doubt, 
however, about the expenses of the Chateau during this an- 
nual series of fetes. It could not have been less than forty- 
five thousand francs per diem, and must have often risen to 

* Known on the English stage as the " Queen's Shilling," by Mr. Godfrey. — 
Editor. 

t The Sainte-Eug^nie, according to the Church Calendar. In France, it is 
not the birthday, but the day of the patron-saint whose name one bears, which 
is celebrated, — Editor. 



THE THEATRE. 307 

fifty thousand francs, exclusive of the cost of the theatrical 
performances, because the luxe displa3^ed on these occasions 
was truly astonishing — I had almost said appalling 

The theatre was built on the old-fashioned principle, and 
what Ave call stalls were not known in those days. There was 
something analogous to them at the Opera and the Theatre- 
Fran9ais, but they were exclusively reserved to the male sex. 
Both these theatres still keep up tlie same traditions in that 
respect. At Compiegne the whole of the ground floor, par- 
terre, or pit, as we have misnamed it — " groundlings " is a 
much more appropriate word, perhaps, than " pittites " — was 
occupied by the officers of all grades of the regiments quar- 
tered at Compiegne and in the department. The chefs de 
corps and the chief dignitaries of State filled the amphithe- 
atre, which rose in a gentle slope from the back of the par- 
terre to just below the first tier of boxes, or rather to the 
balcony tier, seeing that the only box on it was the Imperial 
one. The latter, however, took up much more than the 
centre, for it had been constructed to seat about two hundred 
persons. Only a slight partition, elbow high, divided it from 
the rest of the tier, whence the sterner sex was absolutely 
banished. The display of bare arms and shoulders was some- 
thing marvellous, for they were by no means equally worthy 
of admiration, and the stranger, ignorant of the court regu- 
lations, must have often asked himself why certain ladies 
should have been so reckless as to invite comparison with 
their more favoured sisters. It was because there was no 
choice. The slightest gauze was rigorously prohibited, and 
woe to the lady who ventured to disobey these regulations. 
One of the chambellans was sure to request her to retire. 
" L'epaule ou I'epaulette " was the title of a comic song of 
those days, in allusion to the Empress's determination to suf- 
fer none but resplendent uniforms and ball dresses within 
sight of her. If I remember aright, the chorus went like 
this — 

" Je ne porte pas I'epaulette, 
Je ne puis me decoll'ter, 
Je ne suis qu'un vieux bonhomme, 
Done, ]'e ne suis pas invite." 

'For even the guests in plain evening dress were mercilessly 
relegated to the tier above that of the Imperial box, and, 
even when there, were not permitted to occupy the first 



308 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

rows. These also were reserved for the fairer portion of 
humanity. 

This fairer portion of humanity, thus ostensibly privi- 
leged, embittered the lives of the poor mayor and sub-pre- 
fect of Compiegne. The wives of the local notabilities and 
of the government officials, in addition to those of some of 
the landed gentry of the Empire, were not only anxious to 
be present at these gatherings, but generally insisted on hav- 
ing the front seats, at any rate in the second circle. Their 
applications, transmitted by these dignitaries to the Due de 
Bassano, were always in excess of the room at his disposal, 
and, being an utter stranger to all these ladies, he had vir- 
tually to choose at random, or, if not at random, to be guided 
by the mayor and sub-prefect, who were consulted, not with 
regard to the greater or lesser degree of opulent charms and 
comeliness of features of these fair applicants, but with re- 
gard to their social status and fair fame. Now, it so hap- 
pens that in France " L'amour fait des siennes " in the prov- 
inces as well as in the capital ; he only disdains what Mira- 
beau used to call " les fees concombres." The Empress, pro- 
vided the shoulders and arms were bare, did not trouble 
much about either their colour or " moulded outline ; " the 
Emperor, on the contrary, objected, both from personal as 
well as artistic reasons, to have the curved symmetry of the 
two circles marred by the introduction of so many living 
problems of Euclid ; and it really seemed as if the devil 
wanted to have all the good shapes to himself, for the re- 
putedly virtuous spinsters, widows, and matrons were angular 
enough to have satisfied a tutor of mathematics. There was 
a dilemma: if they were put in the front rows, the Emperor 
scolded Bassano, who in his turn scolded the mayor and the 
sub-prefect. If the less virtuous but more attractive were 
put in the front rows, tliere was frequently a small scandal ; 
for the Empress, at the first sight of them, had them ex- 
pelled, after which she scolded Bassano, who avenged liim 
self for his having been reprimanded on the mayor and sub- 
prefect. Furthermore, the contingent from Paris, some of 
whom were often provided with letters of introduction from 
influential personages to the latter gentleman, were not al- 
ways without reproach though ever without fear; but how 
were two provincial magistrates to know this? Those sirens 
conhl almost impose upon them with impunity, and did ; so, 
upon the whole, the magistrates did not have a pleasant time 



"MARIVAUDAGE" AND WORSE. 309 

of it, for in the case of the former damsels or veuves de Mala- 
bar both the Emperor and the Empress were equally strict — 
though, perhaps, from utterly different motives. 

Nevertheless, the esclandres were comparatively rare, and 
the house itself presented a sight un23aralleled perhaps 
throughout the length and breadth of Europe. At nine 
o'clock, Comte Bacciochi, the first chambellan, in his court 
dress descended the few steps leading from the foyer to the 
Imperial box, and, advancing to the front, announced, " The 
Emperor." Every one rose and remained standing until the 
Emperor and Empress, who entered immediately afterwards, 
had seated themselves in the crimson velvet and gilt arm- 
chairs which the gentlemen-in-waiting (les chambellans de 
service) rolled forward. 

I have spoken elsewhere of the immediate entourage of 
the Imperial hosts, and may therefore pass them over in 
silence here. As the Napoleonic dynasty became apparently 
more consolidated both at home and abroad, this entourage 
gradually changed — though no truthful observer could have 
honestly averred that the change was for the better. The 
decaves and the declassees of the first period disappeared al- 
together, or underwent a truly marvellous financial and social 
metamorphosis : the men, by means of speculations, chiefly 
connected with the " Haussmannizing " of Paris, the success- 
ful carrying out of which was greatly facilitated by their posi- 
tion at court; the women by marriages, the conditions of 
which I prefer not to discuss. An undoubtedly genuine 
leaven of names to be found in " D'Hozier," * came to swell 
the ranks of the hitherto somewhat shady courtiers of both 
sexes. Unfortunately, their blood was not only thicker than 
water, and consequently more easily heated, but they pre- 
sumed upon the blueness of it to set public opinion at defi- 
ance. 

" Ce qui, chez les mortels, est une effronterie 
Entre nous autres demi-dieux 
N'est qu'honnete galanterie." 

Thus wrote the Duchesse du Maine f to her brother, of whom 
she was perhaps a little more fond than even their blood-rela- 



* " D'Hozier," the French "Burke," so named after its founder, Pierre D'Ho- 
zier, the creator of the science of French genealofry. — EnrroR. 

t Anne, Louise, Benedicte de Bourbon, Princesse de Conde, who married the 
Due du Maine, the illegitimate son of Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan. 



310 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

tionsliip warranted. This privilege of stealing the horse, 
v/hile the meaner-horn might not even look over the hedge, 
was claimed hy the sons and the daughters of the old noblesse, 
who condescended to grace the court of Napoleon III., with 
a cynicism worthy of the most libertine traditions of the 
ancien regime ; and neither the Empress nor the Emperor 
did anything to discountenance the claim. The former, pro- 
vided that '' tout ce passait en famille," closed her eyes to 
many things she ought not to have tolerated. At the Tuile- 
ries, a certain measure of decorum was preferred ; at Com- 
piegne and Fontainebleau, where the house was " packed " 
as it were, the most flagrant eccentricities, to call them by 
no harsher name, were not only permitted, but tacitly en- 
couraged by the Euipress. This was especially the case 
when the first series of guests was gone. It generally in- 
cluded the most serious portion of the visitors, " les ennuy- 
eurs, les empecheurs de danser en rond," * as they were 
called. The ladies belonging to, or classed in that category, 
presented, no doubt, a striking contrast to those of the suc- 
ceeding series, in which the English element was not always 
con^'picuous by its absence. The costumes of the latter were 
something wonderful to behold. The cloth skirt, which had 
then been recently introduced from England, and the cloth 
dress, draped elegantly over it, enabled their wearers to defy 
all kinds of weather. And as they went tramping down the 
muddy roads, their coquettish little hats daintily poised on 
enormous chignons, their walking boots displaying more than 
the regulation part of ankle, the less sophisticated Compie- 
gnois stared with all their might at the strange company from 
the Chateau, and no wonder. Still, the surprise of the in- 
habitants was small compared to that of the troopers of the 
garrison at the invasion of their riding-school by such a con- 
tingent, which indulged in ring-tilting, not unfrequently in 
tent-pegging, and, more frequently still, " in taking a header 
into space," to the great amusement of their companions. 

In those days. Worth was not quite king ; the cocodettes 
of the Imperial circle were still prophesying on their own ac- 
count. The " arsenal des modes," as Madame Emile de Gi- 

She disliked her husband, whom she considered socially beneath her, and who 
was very Ui^ly besides. The lines quoted above are probably not hers, but 
Malezieu's, "her poet in ordinary," who also organized her amateur theatricals. 
— Editor. 

* Idiomatically, " the bores, the spoil-sports, or wet-blankets." — Editor. 



HIGH-BOI^N BALLERINAS. 311 

rardin had boastingly called Paris but ten years previously, 
had as yet not been boldly taken by storm by a native of 
bucolic Lincolnshire. But in a very short time he became 
the absolute autocrat in matters of feminine apparel. It was 
not even an enlightened despotism. His will was law. Every 
dilferent entertainment required its appropriate costume, and 
the costume was frequently the sole pretext for the entertain- 
ment. And when the ingenuity in devising both was in 
danger of becoming exhausted, the supreme resource of these 
ladies was to tarn themselves into ballerinas ; not into balle- 
rinas as King Bomba, or the Comte Sosthene de la Roche- 
foucauld, or M. Rouher would have had them, but into balle- 
rinas with the shortest of gauze skirts and pink silk flesh- 
ings. 

One year, lam not certain of the exact one, — I know that 
the future Emperor of Germany was there, — the ladies hit 
upon the idea of giving a surprise to the Emperor and Em- 
press on the occasion of the latter's fete-day. A ballet-master 
was sent for in hot haste from Paris, and " Le Diable a Qua- 
tre " put in rehearsal. Unlike Peter the Great, who had a 
soldier hanged — he said shooting was too good for him — for 
having represented a disreputable character on the stage, the 
Emperor professed himself exceedingly pleased; and the 
ladies, among whom was Princess von Metternich, were sent 
for from the Imperial box to be complimented by the sover- 
eign. At the ball which followed the entertainment, they ap- 
peared in their theatrical dresses. Every one was delighted. 
" Apres tout," said Napoleon, blinking his eyes, " avec cette 
manie des hommes de courir apres des danseuses, il vaut 
mieux leur en fournir de' bonne maison." 

The philosophy was unassailable, and, to a certain extent, 
acted upon by its professor. Xapoleon only admired dancers 
on the stage. He thought, with Balzac, that the extraordi- 
nary physical strain upon the lower extremities necessarily in- 
terfered with the intellectual development "at the other end." 
"L'esprit de la danseuse est dans ses jambes, et je n'aime pas 
les femmes betes," he remarked ; for the Emperor, like most 
of the members of his family, did not scruple to apply the 
right word, when talking to his familiars. 

Nevertheless, until he was assured of the stupidity of a 
woman by more intimate acquaintance, he was too much in- 
clined to be attracted by the first handsome face he saw, or, 
to speak by the card, by the first handsome face he picked out 



312 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

for himself. The moment he was seated by the side of the 
Empress in the Imperial box, during one of those perform- 
ances I mentioned just now, he swept the house with his 
opera-glass, and unerringly the glass stopped at what was 
really the handsomest woman in the house, whether she was 
seated on the tier with him or in the upper one— of course, I 
mean " the handsomest woman " among the strangers, be- 
cause on such occasions the Emperor paid but little attention 
to those who were generally around him. The Empress was 
fain to put up with these peccadilloes : she could not be al- 
ways running away to Schwalbach or to Scotland ; besides, 
she knew that she would have to come back again. Some 
months previous to the performance of '' Le Diable a Quatre, 
she went to the former place to hide her mortification. Will- 
iam of Prussia was at Baden-Baden at the time, and he im- 
mediately left the delightful society and the magnificent rou- 
lades of Pauline Lucca to offer his sympathies to the Griselda 
who had fled from her home troubles, forgetting that there 
was another one at home, who would have even been more 
■ glad of his company. -. -, ^i ^ • i 

On the day after the shooting-party and the theatrical per- 
formance, there was generally an excursion to Pierref onds, and 
afterwards to the magnificent Roman remains at Champlieu. 
In the evening there were charades and carpet dances as 

^^^^^The third dav was always reserved for the most important 
part of the programme-the stag-hunt. Candidly speaking, 
1 doubt Avhether Napoleon, though a very excellent horseman, 
cared much for this sport, as conducted on the grand tradi- 
tional lines of the French " code of venerie." His mam ob- 
iect personally was a good stiff run with the hounds, such as 
he had been used to in England, troubling himself little 
whether the pack kept the scent or not^ In fact, there were 
generally two packs out, one of purely English breed, which 
was followed by the Emperor and his guests; the other 
French, followed by the serious lovers of sport, who, as a rule, 
caught at every pretext to get away from the magnificently 
apparelled crowd, driving or riding in the wake of the sover- 
eicrn Among the former there was a considerable sprinkling 
onhe landed gentry of the neighbourhood, monarchists and 
legitimists to a man, some of whom did not even condescend 
to honour the Emperor with a salute. Compiegne, Senart, 
etc., were, after all, public property, and they could do as they 



THE STAG-HUNT. 313 

iiked, though I have got an idea that this wilful slight was 
a 1 instance of singular bad taste on the part of these gentle- 
men. 

The spot fixed for the meet was invariably the large clear- 
ing known as the Carrefourda Puits-du-Roi, whence radiated 
eight immense avenues, stretching as far as the uttermost con- 
fines of the forest of Compiegne. The spot, apart from its 
associations with royalty, from the days of Clovis up to our 
own, was admirably chosen, the mise-en-scene worthy of the 
greatest stage-manager on record. The huge centre itself w^as 
kept clear by the gendarmes de chasse — a cross between a 
mounted constable and a ranger — from any but the officers 
of the garrison on horseback and other persons privileged to 
join the Emperor's suite. Six of the avenues were free to 
the pedestrians, who could watch every movement from their 
vantage point ; the seventh was set apart for carriages of all 
sorts, from the humble shandrydan of the local notary and 
doctor to the magnificent break of the neighbouring landed 
proprietor, or the less correctly but more showily appointed 
barouches of the leaders of provincial society, who rarely 
missed an opportunity of attending these gatherings, where 
there were so many chances of coming in contact with the 
court. Relegated for at least ten months of the year — allow- 
ing for an annual visit to the capital — to the dull, humdrum, 
though often pretentious round of entertainments of ^ erowa 
circle, the Comtesse d'Esbargnas,* whether young or old, 
handsome or the reverse, matron or widow, of patrician or 
plebeian origin, sedulously watched the yearly recurring time 
and tide that might lead to a permanent footing at the Tuil- 
eries. What has happened once may happen again. Agnes 
Sorel, Diane de Poitiers, G-abrielle d'Estrees, Louise de la Val- 
liere, let alone Jeanne Bocu and Jeanne Poisson,t had by no 
means exhausted the possibilities of sudden elevations to with- 
in a step of the throne. These new aspirants would be con- 
tent with a less giddy position. And who could say what 
might happen ? Had not Alfred de Musset, the daring poet 
of " les grandes passions," written a play entitled " II ne faut 
jurer de rien"? Assuredly what had happened once might 
happen again. Meanwhile the pleasure of watching all this 
splendour was worth coming for. 

* A character of one of Moliere's plays, who lends her name to the play itself, 
and who, with her provint.'ial clique, apes the manners of the court, 
t ileodames Du Barry and Pompadour. 



314 AN EXGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

The latter proposition hardly admitted of discussion. 
The sight was truly worth coming for. Though the Impe- 
rial suite never made its appearance before one, the main 
arteries of the forest became crowded as early as eleven. 
Half an hour later came La Trace and La Feuille with their 
equipage.* The kennelmen and huntsmen in full dress 
gathered round a roaring fire, their hounds lying at their 
feet. The stablemen and grooms, in undress livery of green 
and brown, walking the hunters of the Emperor and his suite 
to and fro, presented a picture full of colour and animation. 

As a rule the Imj)erial cortege was punctual on those oc- 
casions, though it was often remiss in that respect at gather- 
erings of a different nature. Among the familiars at the 
Tuileries the blame for this general unpunctuality was at- 
tributed in an equal measure to both the Emperor and the 
Empress. The latter dressed very slowly, and the former 
wanted to dress too quickly. The result of this difference of 
habit was always manifest to the most casual observer. The 
Empress, after the most fatiguing day or soiree, always looked 
as if she had just left her dressing-room, tlie Emperor at the 
beginning of the same as if he had scarcely been in it. But 
on " grand hunt-days " the Empress was never a minute late ; 
and the reason, apart from the natural wish to exercise " la 
politesse des rois," exactitude, was a curious one, but for the 
truth of which I can vouch. It gets dark early in Novem- 
ber, and the Empress dreaded to be overtaken by darkness 
in the forest, even amidst a crowd. It reminded her of a 
disagreeable episode during her first stay at Oompiegne, when 
she was still Mdlle. Eugenie de Montijo. She and her future 
husband had got separated from the rest of tliC party. It 
was never accurately known what happened, but she was 
found sitting quietly but sorely distressed on her horse by 
M. de Saint-Paul, the sub-ranger, who escorted her back to 
the Chateau. She explained her lonely and uncomfortable 
position by the fact that her companion's horse had suddenly 
taken the bit between its teeth. The explanation was a 
lame one, seeing that the Prince-President, on his return, 
hours before, had looked perfectly composed and not as much 
as mentioned her name. The truth leaked out afterwards. 
Enraged at Mdlle. de Montijo's refusal to grant him a clan- 

* " Equipage*' is the right word. Applied to any but military or hunting 
uses, it is out of place, though frequently tlius used.— Editor. 



THE EMPRESS'S TEMPER. 315 

destine interview for that night, her princely suitor liad left 
her to find her way back as best she could. 

Invariably, then, at the stroke of one, the Imperial pro- 
cession was signalled, for it was nothing less than a proces- 
sion. At its head rode the chief ranger of Compiegne, Baron 
de Winiptfen, in a magnificent hunting-coat of green and 
gold, the laced tricornered hat, surmounted by a bunch of 
black plumes, jackboots, and white doeskins. Then came 
the Imperijd break, drawn by six liorses, mounted by postil- 
ions in powdered wigs, the Imperial host and hostess on the 
front seat, the members of the family, or some illustrious 
guests, behind ; the rest of the breaks were only four-horsed, 
and the procession was closed by the carriage of M. Ilyrvoix, 
the chief of the secret police. In Paris this arrangement 
was reversed, and M. Ilyrvoix, who luid the rank of a prefect, 
and took his place as such at all i^ublic functions, preceded 
instead of following the Imperial carriage. 

I am inclined to think, notwithstanding the frequent out- 
cries against the secret police during the second empire, that 
M. Ilyrvoix was a thoroughly upright and conscientious 
servant. Unfortunately for himself and his Imperial mas- 
ters, his position was a difficult one ; for though professedly 
employed to gauge public opinion with regard to the dynas- 
ty, liis reports to that effect were not always received with 
the consideration due to honest truth, at any rate by the 
Empress. Throughout these pages, I have endeavoured as 
far as possible to jot down my recollections in a kind of 
chronological order, rather than in the order they occurred 
to me; but in this, as in many other instances, I have been 
obliged to anticipate the course of events lest they should 
slip my memory, for I had no documents to go by, and also 
to avoid unnecessary repetitions. This particular part of 
my somewhat disjointed narrative was meant to deal with 
the festivities at Compiegne and the company there ; on 
reading it over, I find that it has developed into a fragment 
of biography of the Emperor and his Consort. As such, the 
following stories will throw a valuable side light on their 
different dispositions. 

AVhen the news of Emperor Maximilian's death reached 
Paris, there was the rumbling of a storm which foreboded no 
good. For days before, there had been vague rumours of 
the catastrophe. It had been whispered at the annual dis- 
tribution of prizes at the College de France, where one of 



31G AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

the young Cavaignacs had refused to receive his reward at 
the hands of tlie Prince Imperial. In short, indignation 
was rife among all classes. The Empress, on hearing of the 
insult, had burst into hysterical tears, and been obliged to 
leave the reception-rooms. In short, a dark cloud hung over 
the Tuileries. I have spoken elsewhere of the Mexican ex- 
pedition, so need not enlarge upon it here. We will take it 
that both Napoleon and his wife were altogether blameless 
in the affair — which was by no means the case, — but a mo- 
ment's reflection ought to have shown them that appearances 
were against them, and that the discontent expressed was so 
far justified. I am under the impression that Napoleon him- 
self looked at it in that way ; he bowed to the storm ; he re- 
gretted, but did not resent people speaking ill of him. Not 
so the Empress ; the truth was only welcome to her when it 
flattered her ; she really fancied herself an autocrat by the 
Grace of Grod, as the previous Bourbons interpreted the 
term. In spite of all that has been said about her amia- 
bility, about her charity, Eugenie was in reality cruel at 
heart. No woman, not cruel, could have taken the prin- 
cipal part in a scene which I will describe presently- But 
she was vindictive also, and, what was worse, blindly vin- 
dictive. Though firmly convinced that she reigned by right 
divine, she had felt more than once that private revenge on 
" the people " who abused her was beyond her power. She 
not only fretted accordingly, but often vented her wrath on 
the first victim that came to hand, albeit that the latter was 
generally the mere innocent conveyance through which the 
voice of " the people " reached her. M. Hyrvoix, in virtue 
of his functions, often found himself the echo of that voice. 
He was generally the first of all the officials to present his 
daily report. The Emperor gave him his cue by asking, 
" What do the people say ? " 

On that 23articular morning, after the death of Maxi- 
milian had become known, the answer came not as readily as 
usual ; for the chief of the secret police was not in the habit 
of mincing matters. This time, however, M. Hyrvoix kept 
silent for a while, then replied, " The people do not say any- 
thing, sire." 

Napoleon must have noticed the hesitating manner ; for 
he said at once, " You are not telling me the truth. What 
do the people say ? " 

" Well, sire, if you wish to know, not only the people, but 



THE VICTIMS OF IT. 317 

every one is deeply indignant and disgusted with the conse- 
quences of this unfortunate war. It is commented upon 
everywhere in the selfsame spirit. They say it is the fault 
of " 

" The fault of whom ? " repeated Xapoleon. 

Whereupon M. Hyrvoix kept silent once more. 

" The fault of whom ? " insisted Xapoleon. 

" Sire," stammered M. Hyrvoix " in the time of Louis 
XVI. people said, ' It is the fault of the Austrian woman.' " 

" Yes, go on." 

" Under Napoleon III. people say, ' It is the fault of the 
Spanish woman. ' " 

The words had scarcely left M. Hyrvoix' lips, when a 
door leading to the inner apartments opened, and the Em- 
press appeared on the threshold. " She looked like a beauti- 
ful fury," said M. Hyrvoix to his friend, from whom I have 
got the story. " She wore a white dressing-gown, her hair 
was waving on her shoulders, and her eyes shot flames. Slie 
hissed, rather than spoke, as she bounded towards me ; and, 
ridiculous as it may seem, I felt afraid for the moment. 
' You will please repeat what you said just now, M. Hyrvoix,' 
she gasped in a voice hoarse with anger. 

" ' Certainly, madame,' I replied, ' seeing that I am here to 
speak the truth, and, as such, your Majesty will pardon me. 
I told the Emperor that the Parisians spoke of ' the Spanish 
woman,' as they spoke seventy-five and eighty years ago of 
* the Austrian woman.' " 

" ' The Spanish woman ! the Spanish woman ! ' she jerked 
out three or four times — and I could see that her hands were 
clenched ; — ' I have become French, but I will show my 
enemies that I can be Spanish when occasion demands it.' 

" With this she left as suddenly as she had come, taking 
no notice of the Emperor's uplifted hand to detain her. 
When the door closed upon her, I said to the Emperor, ' I 
am more than grieved, sire, that I spoke.' 

"'You did your duty,' he said, grasping my hand." 

As a matter of course, the threat to show her enemies 
that she could be Spanish when occasion required was, in 
this instance, an empty one, because "the enemies" hap- 
pened to be legion. A scapegoat was found, however, in the 
honest functionary who had, in the exercise of his duty, 
frankly warned the Emperor of the ugly things that were 
said about her. Next morning, M. Hyrvoix was appointed 



318 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Receiver- General for one of the departments — that is, exiled 
to the provinces. 

This system of ostracism was indiscriminately applied 
to all who happened to offend her. Unfortunately, the 
slightest divergence of opinion on the most trifling matter 
was construed into an offence ; hence in a few years the so- 
called counsellors around the Emperor were simply so many 
automata, moving at her will, and at her will only. Men who 
ventured to think for themselves were removed, or else volun- 
tarily retired from the precincts of the court sooner than 
submit to a tyranny, not based like that of Catherine 11. 
or Ehzabeth upon great intellectual gifts, but upon the way- 
ward impulses of a woman in no way distinguished mentally 
from the meanest of her sex, except by an overweening am- 
bition and an equally overweening conceit. . 

And as nothing is so apt to breed injustice as injustice, 
men, who might have proved the salvation of the Second 
Empire in its hour of direst need, were absolutely driven 
into opposition, and so blinded by resentment as to be unable 
to distinguish any longer between France and those who 
impelled her to her ruin. 

Lest I should be taxed with exaggeration, a few instances 
among the many will suffice. One evening, in the course of 
those charades of which I have already spoken, some of the 
performers, both men and women, had thrown all decorum 
to the winds in their improvised dialogue. A young colonel, 
by no means strait-laced or a hypocrite, who was a great 
favourite with the Emperor and Empress, professed himself 
shocked, in the hearing of the latter, at so much licence in 
the presence of the sovereigns. In reality, it was an honest 
but indirect comment upon the Empress's blamable latitude 
in that respect. The Empress took up the cudgels for the 
offenders. " Vous n'etes pas content, colonel ; he bien ! je 
m'en fiche, reficlie et contrejiche.''^ (" You don't like it, colo- 
nel ; well, I (ion't care a snap, nor two snaps, nor a thou- 
sand snaps."*) The Emperor laughed, and applauded his 
Consort ; the colonel took the hint, and was seen at court no 
more. Shortly afterward he went to Mexico, where all who 
saw him at work concurred in saying that he was not only 

* My translation by no means renders the vulgarity of the sentence. Tlic 
French' have three words to express their contempt for a speaker's opinion, se 
moquer^ m ficlier, and se . . . \ omit the latter, but even the second is rarely 
used in decent society. — Editor. 



M. BOITELLE. 3J9 

a most valuable soldier, but probably the only one in the 
French army, of those days, capable of handling large masses. 
Nevertheless, when the war of '70 broke out, he was still a 
colpnel, and no attempt at offering him a command was 
made. The republicans, for once in a way, were wiser in 
their generation : at this hour he holds a high position in 
tlie army, and is destined to occupy a still higher. It was he 
who counselled Bazaine, in the beginning of the investment 
of Metz, to leave twenty or thirty thousand men behind to 
defend the fortress, and to break through with the rest. 
According to the best authorities of the German general staff, 
the advice, had it been followed, would have materially 
altered the state of affairs. It is not my intention to enlarge 
upon that soldier's career or capabilities ; I have merely men- 
tioned them to show that, when her resentment was roused, 
Eugenie threw all considerations for the welfare of France 
to the winds, and systematically ostracized men, whatever 
their merits ; for I may add that the young colonel, at the 
tim.e of the scene described above, was known to be one of 
the ablest of strategists. 

We have heard a great deal of the Empress's charity. 
Truth to tell, that charity was often as indiscriminate as her 
anger; it was sporadic, largely admixed with the histrionic 
element, not unfrequently prompted by sentimentalism rather 
than by sentiment ; and woe to him or to her who ventured 
tr hint that it, the charity, was misplaced. In those days 
there was a prefect of police, M. Boitelle. He was a worthy 
man, endowed with a great deal of common sense, and, above 
all, honest to a degree. Belonging to the middle classes, he 
was free from the vulgar greed that so often distinguishes 
them in France ; and, after leaving the army as a non-com- 
missioned officer, had settled on a small farm left to him by 
his parents. Now, it so happened that M. de Persigny, 
whose real name was Fialin, had been a sergeant in the same 
regiment, and one day, after the advent of the Empire, being 
in the north, went to pay his former comrade a visit. I am 
perfectly certain that M. Boitelle, whom I knew, and with 
whose son I have continued the auiicable relations subsisting 
between his father and myself, did not solicit any honours or 
appointment from the then powerful friend of the Emperor ; 
nevertheless, Persigny appointed his fellow-messmate to the 
sub-prefectorship of St. Quentin. The emoluments, even in 
those days, v>-ere not large, but M. Boitelle was only a small 



320 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

farmer, and the promise of quick preferment may have in- 
duced him to leave his peaceful homestead ; in short, M. Boi- 
telle accepted, and, after several promotions, found himself 
at last at the Paris Prefecture of Police. In this instance 
the choice was really a good one. I have known a good 
many prefects of police, among others M. de Maupas, who 
officiated on the night of the Coup d'Etat, and who was also 
a personal friend ; but I never knew one so thoroughly fitted 
for the arduous post as M. Boitelle. Though not a man of 
vast reading or brilliant education, he was essentially a man 
of the world in the best sense of the word. He was not a 
martinet, but a capable disciplinarian, and, what was better 
still, endowed with a feeling of great tolerance for the foibles 
of modern society. The soldier and the philosopher were 
so inextricably mixed up in him, that it would have been 
difficult to say where the one ended and the other began. 
M. de Maupas was at times too conscious of his own impor- 
tance; there was too much of the French official in him. 
His successful co-operation in the Coup d'Etat had imbued 
him with an exaggerated notion of his own capabilities of 
" taking people by the scruff of the neck and running them 
in" (a empoigner les gens). An English friend of mine, to 
whom I introduced him, summed him up, perhaps, more fitly. 
" He is like the policeman who ran in a woman of sixty all 
by himself, and boasted that he could have done it if she had 
been eighty." 

But M. Boitelle, though kind-hearted, had no sympathy 
whatsoever with mawkish philanthropy. The Empress, on 
the other hand, had absolute paroxysms of it. She was like 
the Spanish high-born dame who insisted upon a tombstone 
for the grave of a bull, the killing and torturing of which in 
the ring she had frantically applauded. One day she ex- 
pressed her wish to M. Boitelle to pay a visit to Saint-Lazare. 
There is nothing analogous to that institution in England. 
The " unfortunate woman " who prowls about the streets be- 
fore or after nightfall is — except in a few garrison towns — 
tacitly ignored by our legislators, and when she offends 
against the common law, treated by our magistrates like any 
other member of society. We have no establishments where 
the moral cancer eats deeper into the flesh and the mind by 
the very attempt to isolate those who suffer most from it ; we 
have no system which virtually bars the way to a reformed 
life by having given official authority to sin, and by record- 



THE EMPRESS VISITS SAIN T-LAZ ARE. 321 

ing for evermore the names of those whom want alone com- 
pelled to have themselves inscribed as outcasts on those hell- 
islr' registers. We have no Saint- Lazare, and Heaven le 
praised for it ! 

M. Boitelle knew the moral and mental state of most of 
the inmates of Saint-Lazare sufficiently well to foster no illu- 
sions with regard to the benefit to be derived by them from 
the solitary visit of so exalted a personage, while, on the 
other hand, he felt perfectly aware that it was morbid curi- 
osity, however well disguised, that prompted the step. At 
the same time, the respect due to his sovereign made him 
reluctant to expose her, needlessly, to a possible, if not to a 
probable insult ; in short, he considered the projected " tour 
of inspection " an ill-concerted one. He also knew that it 
would be idle to bring his fund of shrewd philosophy to bear 
upon the Empress, to make her relinquish her design, so 
he adopted instead the outspoken method of the soldier. 
" Whatever your charitable feelings may be for those who 
suffer, madame," he said, " your place is not among them." 
The words sound a shade more abrupt in French, but a 
mementos reflection would have shown the most fastidious 
lady that no offence on the speaker's part was intended. 
The Empress, however, drew herself up to her full height. 
" Charity can go any and everywhere, monsieur," she replied. 
"You will please take me to Saint-Lazare to-morrow." 

r would fain say as little as possible about the occupants 
of that gloomy building at the top of the Faubourg St. Denis, 
but am compelled to state in common fairness that, when 
once they are incarcerated and behave themselves — of course, 
according to their lights — they are not treated with unneces- 
sary harshness. I will go further, and say that they are 
treated more leniently than female prisoners in other penal 
establishments. The milder method is due to the presence 
in greater numbers than elsewhere of that admirable angel 
of patience, the Sister of Charity, who has no private griev- 
ances to avenge upon her own sex, who does not look upon 
the fallen woman as an erstwhile and unsuccessful rival for 
the favours of men, who consequently does not apply the v(b 
victis, either by sign, deed, or word. During my long stay 
in Paris, I have been allowed to visit Saint-Lazare twice, and 
I can honestly say that, though the laws that relegate these 
women there are a disgrace to nineteenth-century civiliza- 
tion, their application inside Saint-Lazare is not at all brutal. 



322 A^' ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Tills dees not imply that they lie upon down beds, and that 
their food is of the most delicate description ; but they are 
well cared for bodily. The Empress, however, in a gush of 
nii.-pl;iced charity, thought fit to take objection to their daily 
meals not being concluded with dessert. Thereupon, M. Boi- 
telle, whose sound common sense had already been severely 
tried during that morning, could not help smiling. " Eeally, 
madame," he said ; " you allow your kindness to run away 
with your good sense. If they are to have a dessert, what 
are we to give to honest women? " 

Next day, M. Boitelle was appointed a senator; that is, 
removed from his post as prefect of police, which he had so 
worthily filled, and where he had done a great deal of un- 
ostentatious good. The next time M. Boitelle came in con- 
tact with the Empress was at the last hour of the Empire, 
when he tried, but in vain, to overcome her resentment, caused 
by his unhappy speech of many years before. 

Yet the woman who could indulge in sentiment about the 
absence of dessert in the Saint- Lazare refectory, would, at the 
end of the hunt, deliberately jump off her horse, plunge the 
gleaming knife in the throat of the panting stag, and revel 
in the sight of blood. Many w^ho saw her do this argued that 
in the hour of danger she would as boldly face the enemies 
of herself and her dynasty. I need not say that they were 
utterly mistaken. She slunk away at the supreme hour; 
while the princess, whom she had presumed to teach the 
manners of a court, left like a princess in an open landau, 
preceded by an outrider. I am alluding to Princess Clotilde. 



THE STORY OF A CELEBRATI^D SCULPTOR. 323 



CHAPTER XVI. 

The story of a celebrated sculptor and his model— David dWn^ers at the funeral 
of Cortot, the sculptor — How I became acquainted with him — The sculptor 
leaves the funeral procession to speak to a woman —He tells me the story — 
David d'Angers' sympathy with Greece in her strngcrle for independence 
— When Botzaris falls at"^Missolonghi, he makes up his mind to carve his 
monument — Wishes to do something original — He finds his idea in the 
cemetery of Pere-la-Chaise — In search of a model — Comes unexpectedly 
upon her in the Rue du Mont]>arnasse, while in company of Victor Hugo — 
The model and her mother — The bronze Christ on the studio wall — David 
gives it to his model — The latter dismissed — A plot ao^ainst the sculptor's 
life — His model saves him— He tries to find her and fails — Only meets Avith 
her when walking behind the hearse of Cortot— She appears utterly desti- 
tute — Loses sight of lier again — Meets her on the outer boulevards with a 
nondesci'ipt of the worst character — He endeavours to rescue her, but fails 
— Canler, of the Paris police, reveals the tactics pursued with regard to 
"unfortunates" — David's exile and death— The Botzaris Monument is 
brought back to Paris to be restored — The model at the door of the exhibi- 
tion — Her death. 

Ix connection with the treatment of " fallen women " in 
Paris, I may give the following story, which becomes inter- 
esting in virtue of the personality of one of the actors. In 
1843 the sculptor Cortot died, and I followed his funeral on 
foot, as was the custom in those days. I walked by the side 
of one of the greatest artists Fi-ance, or, for that matter, the 
world, has ever produced — David d'Angers. The name of 
his native town was adopted to distinguish him from his cele- 
brated namesake, the painter. I had become acquainted with 
the great sculptor a twelvemonth previously, in Delacroix's 
studio. All at once, as the procession went along the Quai 
Malaquais, I saw him start violently, and break through what, 
for want of a more appropriate term, I must call the ranks of 
mourners. For a moment only ; the next, he was back by my 
side : but I noticed that he was f riglitf ully agitated. He prob- 
ably saw my concern for him in my face, for, though I asked 
him no questions, he said of his own accord, " It is all right. 
I just caught sight of a woman who saved my life, and, by 
the looks of her, she is in great straits, but, by the time I got 



32 i AN ENGLISHMAN IN PxiRIS. 

out of the crowd, she had disapj^eared. I have au idea of the 
errand she was bent upon, and will inquire to-morrow, but I 
am afraid it will be of very little use." 

I kept silent for a moment or two, but my curiosity was 
aroused, for, I repeat, at that time, the artistic world was 
ringing with the name of David d' Augers. 

" I did not know you had been in such great danger," I 
said at last. 

"Very few people do know it," he replied sadly; "be- 
sides, it happened a good many years ago, when you were 
very young. The next time we meet I will tell you all 
about it." 

A week or so afterwards, as I was leaving the Cafe de 
Paris one evening, and going to the tobacconist at the corner 
of the Rue Laffite, I ran against the celebrated sculptor. The 
weather was mild, and we sat outside Tortoni's, where he 
told me the story, part of which I give in his own words, as 
far as I can remember them after the lapse of more than 
forty years. 

" If there were any need," he began, " to apologize to an 
Englishman for my sympathy with the Philheilenism which 
shortened the life of Byron, I might say that 1 sucked the 
principle of the independence of nations with the mother's 
milk, for I was born in 1789. Be that as it may, when 
Marcos Botzaris fell at Missolonghi I felt determined that 
he should have a monument worthy of his heroism and pa- 
triotism, as far as my talents could contribute to it. I was 
sufficiently young to be enthusiastic, and, at the same time, 
sufficiently presumptuous to imagine that I could do some- 
thing which had never been done before. You have seen the 
engraving of the monument ; you may judge for yourself 
how far I succeeded. But the idea of the composition, how- 
ever out of the common, was, I am bound to admit, not ihe 
offspring of my own imagination. I was, perhaps, clever 
enough to see the poesy of it when presented to me, and to 
appropriate it ; but the young, fragile girl lying on the tomb- 
stone and tracing the name of Marcos Botzaris was suggested 
to me by a scene I witnessed one day at Pere-la-Chaise. I 
saw a child stooping over a gravestone, and trying to spell 
out the words carved on it. It was all I wanted. I own, 
from that moment, my composition took shape in my mind. 
I was, however, still at a loss where to find the ideal child. 
The little girl of whom I had caught a glimpse would not 



IN SEARCH OF A MODEL. 325 

have done at all for my purpose, even if her parents would 
have consented to let her sit, Avhich was not at all likely — she 
was the prosperous-looking demoiselle of a probably prosper- 
ous bourgeoise family, well-fed, plump, and not above seven 
or eight. I, on the contrary, wanted a girl double that age 
just budding into womanhood, but with the travail of the 
transition expressed in every feature, in every limb. She was 
to represent to the most casual observer the sufferings en- 
gendered by the struggle against tutelage for freedom. She 
Avas to bend over the tomb of Botzaris to drag the secret of 
that freedom from him. Dawning life was to drag the secret 
from the dead. 

" That was my idea, and for several days I cudgelled my 
brain to find among my models one that would, physically 
and morally, represent all this. In vain ; the grisettes of the 
Rue Fleurus and the Quartier- Latin, in spite of all that has 
been said of them by the poets and novelists of that time, 
were not at all the visible incarnations of lofty sentiment ; 
wdiat3ver pain and grief an unrequited romantic passion 
might entail, they left no appreciable traces on their com- 
plexions or in their outline ; they were saucy madams, and 
looked it. I had communicated my wants to some of my 
friends, - and one of them sent me what he thought would 
suit. The face was certainly a very beautiful one, as an ab- 
solutely perfect ensemble of classical features I have never 
seen the like ; but there was about as much expression in it 
as in my hand, and, as for the body, it was simply bursting 
out of its dress. I told her she would not do, and the reason 
why. ' Monsieur can't expect me to go into a consumption 
for two francs fifty an hour,' she remarked, bouncing out of 
the room. 

" 1 was fast becoming a nuisance to all my cronies, when, 
one day, going to dine with A^ictor Hugo at La Mere Saget's, 
wiiich was at the Barriere du Maine, I came unexpectedly, 
in the Rue du Montparnasse, upon the very girl for which I 
had been looking out for months. Notwithstanding her 
rags, she was simply charming. She was not above fourteen 
or fifteen, and, although very tall for her age, she had 
scarcely any flesh on her bones. I only knew her Christian 
name — Clementine : I doubt whether she had any other. 
Next morning she came with her mother, an old hag, dissi- 
pation and drunkenness written in every line of her face. 
But the child lierself was perfectly innocent — at any rate, as 



326 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

innocent as she could be with such a parent, and tractable to 
a degree. After a little while the old woman, tired of twirl- 
ing her thumbs, disgusted, perhaps, at my want of hospitality 
in not offering her refreshments, left off accompanying her ^ 
Clementine came henceforth alone. 

" My studio was in the Rue de Fleurus in those days, and 
on the wall hung a very handsome bronze Christ on a velvet 
panel and in a dark satin frame. Curiously enough, I often 
caught the mother watching it ; it seemed to have an irre- 
sistible fascination for her : and, one day, while the child was 
dressing, after two or three hours of hard work, she suddenly 
exclaimed, ' That's why my mother will not come here ; she 
says she'd commit a robbery. She never leaves olf talking 
about it. I wonder whether you'd like to. part with it, M. 
David ? A Christ like that would be beautiful in our attic. 
It would comfort and cheer me. If you like, I'll buy it of 
you. Of course, I have no money, but you can deduct it 
from my sittings. You can have as many as you like, not 
only for this statue, but for any other you may want later 
on.' 

" We democrats, professed republicans, and more than 
suspected revolutionaries, are not credited by the majority 
with a great reverence for religious dogma ; we are generally 
branded as absolute freethinkers, not to say atheists. This is 
frequently a mistake.* I have no occasion to recite my 
c7'edo to you, but a great many of the republicans of '89 and 
of to-day were and are believers. At any rate, I fondly 
imagined that the Christ for which the mother and child 
were longing might exercise some salutary influence on their 
lives, so I simply took down the frame and its contents and 
handed them to her She staggered under the weight. 
* You want that Christ,' I said ; ' here it is : and when you 
are tempted to do evil look at it, and think of me, who gave 
it you as a present.' 

'"As a present ? ' she shrieked for joy ; and hurried away 
as fast as her legs would carry her. 

" In about six months from that day the statue was fin- 
ished. I had no further need of Clementine's services, and 

* It is a mistake. Not to mention Camille Desmoulins, who, when asked 
his a^e by his judare, replied, " The aare of another saus-culotte., Jesus," Esquiros 
frequently spoke of "•that i^^ood patriot, Christ;" Lammenais began the draft of 
his constitution with " In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
and by the will of the Frenx-h people." — Editor. 



THE MODEL FOUND. 327 

gradually all thought of her slipped from my mind. You 
may have heard that some time after my work was despatched 
to Greece, I was assaulted one night in the Rue Childebert, 
on my way to Gerard de Nerval's. My skull was split open 
in two places, I was left for dead in the street, and but for a 
workman who stumbled over me, took me home, and sat up 
with me until morning, I might not have lived to tell the 
tale. From the very first I suspected the identity of my 
assailant, though I have never breathed his name to any one. 
I am glad to say I never had many enemies, nor have I now, 
as far as I am aware ; but I had oifended the man by with- 
holding my vote in a prize competition. He was, however, 
not responsible for his actions ; for even at that time he 
must have been mad. A few years afterwards, the suspicion 
both of his madness and his attempt upon my life became a 
certainty, for he repeated the latter. You are very young, 
and youth is either very credulous or very sceptical. We 
should be neither. If what I am going to tell you now were 
to be represented to you at the AmiDigu or Porte Saint- 
Martm, you^^ as an educated man, would shrug your shoulders, 
and look with a kind of good-natured contempt upon the 
grisette or workman or bourgeois who would sit spellbound 
and take it all in as so much gospel. Providence, fate, call 
it what you will, concocts more striking dramatic situations 
and a greater number of them than M. Scribe and all his 
compeers have constructed in the course of their professional 
careers. Listen, and you shall judge for yourself. 

"About seven years after the attack in the Eue Childe- 
bert, I received a letter one morning, inviting me to attend a 
meeting that same night between twelve and one, at a house 
in the Faubourg Saint- Jacques, near the hospital of the Val- 
de-Grace. The letter told me how to proceed. There being 
no concierge in the house, I was to provide myself with a 
' dark lantern,' and to go up four flights of stairs, where I 
should find a door with a cross chalked upon it. It would 
be opened by my giving a particular knock. My previous 
danger notwithstanding, I had not the least suspicion of this 
being a trap. I did not for one moment connect the letter 
with the other event, the recollection of which, strange as it 
may seem to you, did not obtrude itself at all then. But 
there was another reason for the absence of caution on my part. 
In one of its corners the letter bore a sign, not exactly that 
of a secret societ}^, but agreed upon among certain patriots. 



323 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

" In short, a little before twelve o'clock that night, I went 
to the place appointed. I had no difficulty in finding the 
house, and reached the fourth story Avithout meeting a soul. 
There was the door, with the cross chalked on it. I knocked 
once, twice, without receiving an answer. Still, the thought 
of evil never entered my head. I began to think that I, had 
been the victim of a hoax of some youngsters of the Ecole 
des Beaux- Arts, most of whom were aware of my political 
opinions. I was just turning round to go down again, when 
a door by the side of that indicated was slowly opened, and a 
young girl with a lighted candle appeared on the threshold. 
Though both the candle and my lantern did not shed much 
lightjl perceived that, at the sight of me, she turned very pale, 
but, until she spoke, I failed to recognize her. Then I saw it 
was Clementine, my model. She scarcely gave me time to 
speak. ' It is you, M. David,' she said, in a voice trembling with 
fear and emotion. ' You,' she repeated. ' For Heaven's sake, 
go ! — go as quickly as you can ! If you stay another moment, 
you will be a corpse ; "for God's sake, go ! And let me beg of 
you not to breathe a word of this to any one ; if you do, my 
mother and I will pay for this with our lives. For God's 
sake, go. I did not know that you were the person expected. 
Go— go ! ' 

" 1 do not think I answered a single word. I felt instinct- 
ively that this Avas no hoax, as I had imagined, but terrible 
reality. I went downstairs as fast as I could, but it was not 
until I got into the street that a connection between the two 
events presented itself to me. Then I decided to wait and 
watch. I hid myself in the doorway of a house a few steps 
away. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed when half a dozen 
individuals arrived, one by one, and disappeared into the 
house that sheltered Clementine and her mother. One of 
them, I feel sure, was the man whom I suspected of having 
attempted my life before. A few years more went by, dur- 
ing which I often thought of my former model ; and then, 
one day, I felt I would like to see her again. In plain day- 
light this time, I repaired to the house of the Faubourg Saint- 
Jacques, clambered up the stairs, and knocked at the door I 
had such good cause to remember. The door was opened by 
a workman, and a rapid glance at the inside of the room 
showed me that he was a lastmaker. ' Mademoiselle Clemen- 
tine? ' I asked. The man stared at me, and said, * No such 
person lives here.' I made inquiries on all the lower floors — • 



HER DOWNWARD CAREER 329 

nobody had ever heard of her. Clementine had disappeared. 
I never saw her again nntil a few days ago, when I walked by 
your side behind the body of Cortot. I should not have rec- 
ognized her but for the bronze Christ she carried under her 
arm, and which attracted my notice. If what I surmise be 
correct, she must have reached the last stage of misery ; for I 
feel convinced that nothing but absohite want would make 
her part with it. I have, however, failed to trace it in any ol 
the bric-a-brac shops on the quays, and I believe that I have 
pretty well inquired at every one ; so I must fain be content 
until fate throws her again across my path." 

So far the story as told by the great sculptor himself. 
During the next eight years, in fact up to the Coup d'Etat, 
I met him frequently, and, curiously enough, rarely failed to 
inquire whether in his many wanderings through Paris he 
had caught a glimpse of his formei model. I felt unaccount- 
ably interested in the fate of that woman whom I had never 
seen, and, if we had been able to find her, would have en- 
deavoured to find a decent home for her. But for about 
three years my inquiries always met with the same answer. 
Then, one evening in the latter end of '46 or beginning of 
'47, David told me that he had met her on the outer boule- 
vards, arm in arm with one of those terrible nondescripts of 
which one is often compelled to speak again and again, and 
which, as far as I am aware, are nowhere to be found as a 
class except in the French metropolis and great provincial 
centres. Clementine evidently wished to avoid David. A 
little while after, he met her again, and this time followed 
her, but, though by no means a coward, lacked the courage 
to enter the hovel into which she had disappeared with her 
coQipanion. The last time he saw her was in the middle of 
'47, in the Rue des Boucheries. She seemed to have returned 
to her old quarters, and she was by herself. Until she spoke, 
David did not recognize her. Her face was positively seamed 
with horrible scars, "wounds inflicted by her lovers" — Heav- 
en save the mark ! She asked him to help her, and he did ; 
but she had scarcely gone a few steps when she was arrested 
and taken to the prison of I'Abbaye de St. Germain, hard by, 
whither David followed to intercede for her. He was told to 
come back next morning, and that same evening communi- 
cated the affair to me. I decided there and then to accom- 
pany him, in order to carry out my plan of redeeming that 
human soul if possible. I failed, though through no fault of 



330 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

my own, but my attempt brought me in contact with a per- 
sonage scarcely less interesting in his own way than David, 
namely, M. Canler, the future head of the Paris detective 
force. It was through him that I got an insight into some of 
the most revolting features of criminal life in Paris. But, 
before dealing with that subject, I wish to devote a few more 
lines to J3avid, whom I had the honour of numbering among 
my friends till the day of his death, albeit that the last few 
years of his life were spent away from France, whither he re- 
turned, however, to die in '56. After the Coup d'Etat he 
was exiled by Louis-Napoleon — ostensibly, for his political 
opinions; in reality, because he had refused to finish the 
monument for Queen Hortense's tomb after her son's fiasco 
at Boulogne. 

Writing about France and Frenchmen, I feel somewhat 
reluctant to make too lavish a use of the words " patriot " 
and " patriotism," especially with the patriots and the patri- 
otism of the Third Kepublic around me. But I have no 
hesitation in saying that, to David d'Angers, these words 
meant something almost sacred. Sprung from exceedingly 
poor parents, he had amassed, by honest work, a fortune 
which, to men born in a higlier sphere and with far more ex- 
pensive tastes, might seem sufficient. Seeing that he was 
frugality and simplicity personified, that his income was 
mainly spent in alleviating distress, and that his daughter 
was even more simple-minded than her father, he had noth- 
ing to gain by the advent of a republic, nothing to lose by 
the establishment of a monarchy or empire, and his ardent 
championship of republican institutions — such as he con- 
ceived them — was prompted solely by his noble nature. That 
Louis-Napoleon should have exiled such a man was an error 
his warmest friends could scarcely forgive him. But David 
never complained, any more than he ever uttered a harsh 
word against the memory of Flaxman, who, in his youth, 
had shut his doors against him under the impression that he 
was a relation of Louis David who had voted for the death 
of Louis XVL On the contrary, the memory of the great 
English sculptor was held in deep reverence. 

And so David departed, a wanderer on the face of the 
earth with his daughter. He first endeavoured to settle in 
Brussels, but the irresistible desire to behold once more what 
he himself considered his greatest work, the monument to 
Marcos Botzaris, attracted him to Greece. A friend, to whom 



DAVID IN GREECE. 33I 

he communicated his intention, wrote to him, " Do not go." 
He gave him no further reason ; he even withheld from him 
the fact that he had been at Missolonghi a twelvemonth pre- 
viously. The explanation of this r3ticence may be gathered 
from JDavid's letter to him a few days after his, David's, re- 
turn. I have been allowed to copy it, and give it verbatim. 

" Long before our vessel anchored near the spot where 
Byron died, I caught a glimpse of the tumulus erected at the 
foot of the bastion, in honour of Botzaris and his fellow- 
heroes. It made a small dark spot on the horizon, and above 
it was a speck, much smaller and perfectly white. I knew 
instinctively that this was my statue of the ' young Greek 
girl,' and I watched and watched with bated breath, fancying 
as the ship sped along that the speck moved. Of course, it 
was only mj^ imagination, the presumptuous thought that 
the marble effigy would start into life at the approach of its 
creator. 

"Alas, would I had proceeded no further — that I had 
been satisfied with the mirage instead of pushing on in hot 
haste towards the reality ! For the reality was heart-rend- 
ing, so heart-rending that I wept like a child, and clenched 
my fists like a giant in despair. The right hand of the statue, 
the index finger of which pointed to the name, had been 
broken ; the ears had disappeared, one of the feet was broken 
to atoms, and the face slashed with knives. It was like the 
face of the girl that had sat for me, when I last saw it, under 
the circumstances which, you may remember, I told you. 
The whole was riddled with bullets, and some tourists, Brit- 
ish ones probably, had cut their names on the back of the 
child. And so ends the most glorious chapter of my artist's 
career — the model itself fallen beyond redemption, the work 
mutilated beyond repair, the author of it in exile. 

" I felt powerless to repair the mischief. I did not stay 
long. Perhaps I ought not to complain. I knew that Byron 
had been buried near the fortifications at Missolonghi,' but 
all my efforts to find the spot have proved useless^* The 
house where he breathed his last had been pulled down. 
Why should the Greeks have more reverence for Botzaris or 
Mavrocordato than they had for the poet ? and if these three 
are so little to them, what must I be, whose name they proba- 

* Of course, David meant the spot where the remains had been interred at 
first. — Editor. 



332 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

bly never heard ? Still, as I stood at the stern of the depart- 
ing vessel, I felt heart-broken. I have no illusions left." 

I firmly believe that the injury done to the statue hastened 
David's death. His work has since been restored by M. Ar- 
mand Toussaint, his favourite pupil, who gave his promise to 
that effect a few days before the great sculptor breathed his 
last. The monument was, however, not brought to Paris 
until 18G1, and when M. Toussaint had finished his task, he 
invited the press and the friends of his famous master to 
judge of the results. It was at the door of his studio that I 
saw the woman, whose adventures I have told in the preced- 
ing notes, for the first time. A fortnight later, she died at 
the hospital of La Charite, at peace, I trust, with her Maker. 
" Fate, Providence, call it what you will," as David himself 
would have said, had brought me to the spot just in time to 
alleviate the last sufferings of one who, though not alto- 
gether irresponsible for her own errors, was to a still greater 
extent the victim of a system so iniquitous as to make the 
least serious mjnded — provided he be endowed with the faint- 
est spark of humanity — shudder. I allude to the system 
pursued by the Paris detective force in their hunt after 
criminals — a system not altogether abandoned yet, and the 
successful carrying out of which is paid for by the excrucia- 
ting tortures inflicted upon defenceless though fallen women 
— but women still — by the souteneur. I refrain from Angli- 
cizing the word ; it will suggest itself after the perusal of 
the following facts, albeit that, fortunately with us, the creat- 
ure itself does not exist as a class, and, what is worse, as a 
class recognized by those whose first and foremost duty it 
should be to destroy him root and branch. 



The morning after Clementine's arrest, David and I re- 
paired to the prison of I'Abbaye Saint-German. When the 
sculptor sent in his name, the governor himself came out to re- 
ceive us. But the woman was gone ; she had been transferred, 
the previous night, to the depot of the prefecture de police, 
" where," he said, " if you make haste, you will still find 
her." He gave us a letter of introduction for the official 
charged to deal with refractory " filles soumises," or offend- 
ing insoumises, because, then as now, these unfortunates 
were not tried by an ordinary police magistrate in open 
court, but summarily punished by said official, the sentences 



A GLIMPSE AT THE PARIS POLICE. S33 

being subject, however, to revision or confirmation by his 
superior, the chief of the municipal police. Xay, the de- 
cisions were not even communicated to these women until 
they were safely lodged in Saint-Lazare, lest there should be 
a disturbance ; for they were not examined one by one ; and, 
as may be imagined, the contagion of revolt spread easily 
among those hysterical and benighted creatures. 

When we reached the prefecture de police the judging 
■was over, but, on our sending in our letter, avc were admitted 
at once to the officiaPs room. After David's description, he 
remembered the woman, and told us at once that she had 
not been sent to Saint-Lazare, but liberated. Some one had 
interceded for her — no less a j^ersonage than Canler, who, 
though at the time but a superintendent, was already fast 
springing into notice as a detective of no mean skill. " What 
had he done with her?" was David's question. "I could 
not tell you," was the courteous reply ; " but I will give you 
his address, and he will no doubt give you all the information 
in his power and consistent with his duty." With this we 
were bowed out of the room. 

We did not succeed in seeing Canler until two days after- 
wards, or, rather, on the evening of the second day ; for, at 
that period, he was entrusted with the surveillance of the 
theatres on the Boulevard du Temple. I may have occasion 
to speak of him again, so I need not give his portrait here. 
He was about fifty, and, unlike one of his successors, M. 
Claude, the type of the old soldier. Of his honesty there 
never was, there could have never been, a doubt, nor was his 
intelligence ever questioned. And yet, this very honest, in- 
telligent man, in his all-absorbing pursuit, the detection and 
chasing of criminals, was sufficiently dishonest and unintelli- 
gent to foster, if not to inaugurate, a system subversive of all 
morality. 

David's name was a passport everywhere, and, no sooner 
had it been sent in, than Canler came out to him. The 
sculptor stated his business, and the police officer made a 
WTy face. " I am afraid, M. David, I cannot help you in this 
instance. To speak plainly, I have restored her to her sou- 
teneur." W^e both opened our eyes very wide. " Yes," came 
the remark, " I know what you are going to say. I can sum 
up all your objections before you utter them. But I could 
not help myself ; the fellow rendered me a service, and this 
was the iDrice of it. Without his aid, one of the most des- 



33J: AN ExNGLISHMAX IX PARIS. 

perate burglars in Paris would still be at large. As it is, I 
have got him safe under lock and key. Very shocking, no 
d )ubt ; mais, a la guerre comme a la guerre." Then, seeing 
that we did not answer, he continued : " As a rule, I do not 
explain my tactics to everybody ; but you, M. David, are not 
everybody, and, if you like to meet me when the theatre is 
over, I shall be pleased to have a chat with you." 

At half-past twelve that night we were seated at a res- 
taurant near the Porte Saint-Martin, and, after a few prelimi- 
nary remarks, Canler explained. 

However great an artist you may be, M. David, you could 
not produce a statue without the outlay for the marble, or for 
the casting of it in bronze. You, moreover, want to pay 
your jyraticieii^ who does the rough work for you. Our 
praticiejis are the informers, and they want to be paid like 
the most honest workmen. The detection of crime means, no 
doubt, intelligence, but it means also money. Now, money 
is the very thing I have not got, and yet, v/hen I accepted 
the functions I am at present f uiiilling, I gave my promise to 
M. Delessert not to neglect the detective part of the business. 
I wish to keep my word, first of all, because I pledged it ; 
secondly, because detection of crime is food and drink to 
me ; thirdly, because I hope to be the head of the Paris de- 
tective force one day. The Government allows a ridiculously 
small sum every year for distribution among informers, and 
rewards among their own agents ; it is something over thirty 
thousand francs, but not a sou of which ever reached my 
hands when I accepted my present appointment, and scarcely 
a sou of which reaches me now. I was, therefore, obliged to 
look out for auxiliaries, sufficiently disinterested to assist me 
gratuitously, but, knowing that absolute disinterestedness is 
very rare indeed, I looked for my collaborateurs among the 
very ones I was charged to watch, but who, in exchange foi 
my protection in the event of their offending, were ready to 
peach upon their companions in crime and in vice. I need 
not trouble you by enumerating the various categories of my 
allies, but the souteneur, the most abject of them all, is, per- 
haps, the most valuable. 

" He is too lazy to work, and, as a rule, has not got the 
pluck of a mouse, consequently he rarely resorts to crime, 
requiring the smallest amount of energy or daring. He fur- 
thermore loves his Paris, where, according to his own lights, 
he enjoys himself and lives upon the fat of the land ; all 



A GLIMPSE AT THE PARIS POLICE. 335 

these reasons make him careful not to commit himself, albeit 
that at every minute of the day he comes in contact with 
everything that is vile. But he gets hold, of their secrets, 
though the word is almost a misnomer, seeing that few of 
these desperadoes can hold their tongue about their own busi- 
ness, knowing all the while, as they must do, that their want 
of reticence virtually puts their heads into the halter. But 
if they have done ' a good stroke of business,' even if they do 
not brag about it in so many words, they must show their 
success by their sudden show of finery, by their treating of 
everybody all round, etc. The souteneur is, as it were, jeal- 
ous of all this ; for though he lives in comparative comfort 
from what his mistress gives him, he rarely makes a big haul. 
His mistress gone, the pot ceases to boil ; in fact, he calls her 
his marmite. In a few days he is on his beams' ends, unless 
he has one in every different quarter, which is not often the 
case, though it happens now and then. But, at any rate, 
the incarceration of one of them makes a difference, and, 
under the circumstance, he repairs, as far as he dares, to the 
prefecture, and obtains her liberation in exchange for the 
address of a burglar or even a murderer who is wanted. I 
have known one who had perfected his system of obtaining 
information to such a degree as to be able to sell his secrets 
to his fellow-souteneurs when they had none of their own 
wherewith to propitiate the detectives. He has had as much 
as three or four hundred francs for one revelation of that 
kind, which means twenty or thirty times the sum the police 
would have awarded him. Of course, three or four hundred 
francs is a big sum for the souteneur to shell out ; but, when 
the marmite is a good one, he sooner does that than be de- 
prived of his revenues for six months or so. I have diverted 
some of those secrets into my own channel, and Clementine's 
souteneur is one of my clients ; that is why I gave her up. 
Very shocking, gentlemen, but a la guerre comme a la 
guerre." 

M. Canler furthermore counselled us to leave Clementine 
alone. He positively refused to give us any information as 
to her whereabouts ; that is why I did not meet with her until 
five years after David's death, too late to be of any use to her 
in this world. 



336 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 



CHAPTER XYII. 

Queen Victoria in Paris — The becrinnins of the era of middle-class excursions — 
Eno^lish visitors before that^The British tourist of 1855 — Tlie real revenge 
of Waterloo — The Englishman's French and the Frenchman's English — 
The opening of the Exhibition — The lord mayor and aldermen in Paris— 
The King of Portugal — All these considered so much " small fry " — Napo- 
leon III. "goes to Boulogne to welcome the Queen — TJie royal yacht is de- 
layed — The French hotel proprietor the greatest artist iii fleecing— The 
Italian, the Swiss, the German, mere bunglers in comparison — Kapoleon 
III. before the arrival of the Queen— Pondering the past — Arrival of the 
Queen— The Queen lands, followed by Prince Albert and the royal chil- 
dren — The Emperor rides by the side of her carriage— Conunents of the 
population — An old salt on the situation — An old "soldier's retort — The 
genei'al feeling — Arrival in Paris — The Parisians' reception of the Queen — 
A description of the route — The apartments of the Queen at 8t. Cloud — 
How the Queen spent Sunday — Visits the art section of the Exhibition on 
Monday — Ingres and Horace' Vernet presented to her — Frenchmen's igno- 
rance of English art in those days — English and French art critics— The 
Queen takes a carriage drive through Paris — Not a single cry of '' Vive 
I'Angleterre ! " a great" many of" Vive la Keine" — Englan'd mailing a cats- 
paw of France — Keception'at the Ely see-Bourbon — '■ Les Demoiselles de 
Saint-Cyr" at St. Cloud — Alexandre "Dumas would have liked to see the 
Queen— Visit to Versailles — State-performances at the Opera — Ball at the 
Hotel de Ville — The Queen's dancing — Canrobert on '' the Queen's dancing 
and her soldiers' fighting" — Another visit to the Exhibition — Beranger 
misses seeing the Queen—" I am not going to see the Queen, but the 
woman" — A review in the Champ-de-Mars — A visit to Napoleon's tomb — 
Jerome's absence on the plea of illness — Marshal Vaillant's reply to the 
Emperor when the latter invites him to take Jerome's place — His comments 
on the receptions given by the Emperor to foreign sovereigns — Fetes at 
Versailles — Homeward. 

Magnificent as were the quasi-private entertainments 
at Compiegne, and the more public ones at the Tuileries, 
they were as nothing to the series of fetes on the occasion of 
Queen Victoria's visit to Paris, in 1855. For nearly three 
months before, the capital had assumed the aspect of a fair. 
The Exposition TJniverselle of '55 virtually inaugurated the 
era of " middle-class excursions," which since then have as- 
sumed such colossal proportions, especially with regard to 
the English. Previous to this the development of railways 
had naturally brought many of our countrymen to Paris, 
but they were of a different class from those who now invad- 



QUEEN VICTORIA IN PARIS. 337 

ed the French metropolis. They were either men of busi- 
ness bent on business, though not averse to enjoying them- 
selves in the intervals, or else belonging or pretending to 
belong to " the upper ten," and travelling more or less en 
grand seigneurs. They came singly, and left their cards at 
the Embassy, etc. The new visitors came in groups, though 
not necessarily acquainted or travelling with one another ; 
they knew nothing of the Hotel Meurice and the Hotel Bris- 
tol or their traditions ; they crowded the Palais-Royal and its 
cheap restaurants, and had, so to speak, no French at their 
command. Notwithstanding the exclamation of the French- 
man when he saw the statue of Wellington opposite Apsley 
House, it was then, and then only, that the revanche of 
Waterloo began. It has lasted ever since. It was '55 that 
marked the appearance in the shop-windows of small cards 
bearing the words, " English spoken here." Hitherto the 
English visitor to Paris was commonly supposed to have had 
a French tutor or governess, and though the French he or 
she did speak was somewhat trying to the ear, it was heaven- 
ly music compared to the English the Parisian shopkeeper 
now held it incumbent upon himself to " trot out " for the 
benefit of his customers, or that of the guide or valet de place, 
legions of whom infested the streets. 

The Exhibition was opened on the 15th of May, but 
Queen Victoria was not expected until the middle of August. 
Meanwhile, the Parisians were treated to a sight of the Lord 
Mayor — Sir F. Moon, I believe — and the aldermen, who 
came in the beginning of June, and who were magnificently 
entertained by the Paris municipality, a deputation of which 
went as far as Boulogne to welcome them. Still, it was very 
evident that neither their visit nor that of the King of Portu- 
gal and his brother was to tax the ingenuity of upholsterers, 
carpenters, and caterers, or of the Parisians themselves in 
the matter of decoration; the watchword had apparently 
been given from the highest quarters to reserve their greatest 
efforts for what N'apoleon up till then considered " the most 
glorious event of his reign." The Emperor, though he had 
gone to join the Empress, who was by this time known to be 
enceinte, at Eaux- Bonnes and Biarritz, returned to Paris at 
the end of July, and for more than a fortnight occupied 
himself personally and incessantly with the smallest details 
of the Queen's visit, the whole of the programme of which 
was settled by him. 
23 



338 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

I was one of the few privileged persons who travelled 
down to Boulogne with Louis-Napoleon, on Friday, the 17th 
of August, 1855. When we got to our destination, the yacht 
was not in sight, but we were already informed that, owing to 
its heavy tonnage, it would not be able to enter the harbour 
except at high tide, which would not be until 1 p. m., on Sat- 
urday. Shortly after that hour the ves-el, accompanied by 
its flotilla, appeared in the offing ; but the Queen remained 
on board, and we had to enjoy ourselves as best we could, 
which was not difficult, seeing that the whole of the town 
was absolutely in the streets, and that the latter were decid- 
edly preferable to the stuffy attics at the hotels, for which 
we were charged the moderate sum of forty francs each. 
Uneventful as my life has been, it is only worth recording 
by reason of the celebrity of the persons with whom I have 
come. in contact; nevertheless, I have travelled a good deal, 
and been present at a great many festive gatherings both in 
England and on the Continent. Commend me to the French 
hotel-proprietor for fleecing you in cold blood. The Swiss 
and the Italians, no mean masters of the art, are not in it 
with him; and as for the Germans, they are mere 'prentices 
comjDared with him. The Italian despoils you, like his coun- 
tryman of operatic fame, Fra-Diavolo ; the Swiss, like an 
English highwayman of the good old sort ; the German, like 
a beggar Avho picks your pocket while you are looking in 
your purse for a coin to give him ; the Frenchman, like the 
money-lender who is " not working for himself, but for a 
hard-hearted, relentless principal." 

On the Saturday, the Emperor was astir betimes, and 
went to the camp occupied by the troops under the command 
of Marshal Baraguey-d'Hilliers. Louis-Napoleon's counte- 
nance was at all times difficult to read ; I repeat, his eyes, 
like those of others, may have been " the windows of his 
soul," but their blinds were down most of the time. It was 
only at rare intervals that the impenetrable features were 
lighted up by a gleam from within, that the head, which 
generally inclined to the right, became erect. On that morn- 
ing, the face was even a greater blank than usual. And yet 
that day, even to the fatalist he was, must have seemed a 
wonderful one ; for the blind goddess of fortune, the " lucky 
star " in which he trusted, had never rewarded a mortal as 
she had rewarded him. A few years previously, during one 
of his j)residential journeys, he had been hailed with enthu- 



LOUIS-NAPOLEON A FATALIST. 3C9 

siasm at Strasburg, the city in which the scene of one of his 
bitterest fiascos had been laid. The contrast between those 
two days was startling indeed : on the one, he was hnrried 
into a post-chaise as a prisoner to be taken to Paris, with an 
almost certain terrible fate overhanging him ; on the other, 
he was greeted as the saviour of France, the Imperial Crown 
was within his grasp. But, startling as was this contrast, it 
could but have been mild compared to that which must have 
presented itself to his mind that autumn morning at Bou- 
logne, when, a few hours later, the legions — his legions — 
took up their positions from AVimereux on the right to Por- 
sel on the left, to do homage to the sovereign of a country 
which had been the most n-reconcilable foe of the founder of 
his house; on the very heights at the foot of which he him- 
self had failed to rouse the French to enthusiasm ; on the 
very spot where he had become the laughing-stock of the 
world by his performance with that unfortunate tame eagle. 

And yet, I repeat, not a gleam of pride or joy lighted up 
the Sphinx-like mask. To see this man standing there un- 
moved amidst the highest honours the world had to bestow, one 
could not help thinking of Voltaire's condemnation of fatal- 
ism as the guiding principal of life : " If perchance fatalism 
be the true doctrine, I would sooner be without such a cruel 
truth." 

A regiment of laLcers and one of dragoons lined the route 
from the landing-stage to the railway station, for in those 
days the trains did not stop alongside the boats; while on 
the bridge crossing the Liane, three hundred sappers, bearded 
like the Pard, shouldering their axes, wearing their white 
leathern aprons, stood in serried ranks, three deep. 

The Queen's yacht had been timed to enter the iiarbour 
at one, but it was within a minute or so of two before it was 
moored amidst the salutes from the forts. The Emperor, 
Avho had been on horseback the whole of the morning — who, 
in fact, preferred that means of locomotion on all important 
occasions, as it showed him off to greater advantage, — had 
been standing by the side of his charger. He crossed the 
gangway, beautifully upholstered in purple velvet and carpet 
to match, at once, and, after having kissed her hand, offered her 
his arm to assist her in landing. Prince Albert and the royal 
children coming immediately behind the Imperial host and 
his principal guest. A magnificent roomy barouche, capable 
of holding six persons and lined with white satin, but only 



3i0 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

drawn by two horses — such horses ! for in that respect Napoleon 
had spent his time to advantage in England, — stood waiting 
to convey the Royal family. The Emperor himself, though, 
mounted his horse once more, and took his place by the 
right of the carriage, the left being taken by Marslial Bara- 
guey-d'Hilliers. The head of the procession started amidst 
tremendous cheers from the crowd, but we who came on be- 
hind heard some curious comments upon this popular mani- 
festation. KnoAving that there would be a considerable 
delay in getting the train off, I walked instead of driving. I 
was accompanied by Lord , Avho was never averse to hav- 
ing his little joke. " He bien, mon ami," he said to an old 
weather-beaten sailor, who was short of his left leg — " he bien, 
mon ami, nous voila reconcilies." 

" Oui, oui, je t'en fiche," was the answer ; " mais puisqu'il 
en sont a se faire des m'amours, ils devaient bien me rendre 
ma jambe que j'ai perdue dans leurs querelles." 

'' Imbecile," remarked an old soldier-looking man, who, 
though old, was evidently younger than the first speaker, and 
who was short of an arm, " ta jambe ne t'irait pas plus que 
mon bras ; c'etait ta jambe de gar9on." 

" C'est vrai," nodded the other philosophically ; " tout 
de meme, c'est drole que nous nous soyons battus comme des 
chiens," pointing across the Channel in the direction of Eng- 
land, " pour en arriver a cela. Si le vieux (Napoleon I.) 
revenait, il serait rudement colere." And I may say at once 
that, notwithstanding the friendly attitude throughout of the 
rural as well as of the Parisian populations, that was the 
underlying sentiment. " Waterloo est arrange, non pas 
venge," said a Parisian ; " il parait qu'il y a des accommode- 
ments avec les rois, aussi bien qu'avec le ciel." 

As a matter of course, we did not leave Boulogne much 
before three — the original arrangement had been for half-past 
one, — and when we reached Paris it was dark, too early for 
the illuminations which had been projected along the line of 
boulevards from the recently open Boulevard de Strasbourg 
to the Madeleine, not so much as a feature in the programme 
of reception, as in honour of the Queen generally. On the 
other hand, there was not sufficient daylight for the crowds 
to distinguish the sovereign's features, and a corresponding 
disappointment was the result. The lighted carriage lamps 
did not improve matters much. But the Parisians — to their 
credit be it said — knowing that Queen Victoria had expressed 



THE QUEEN'S RECEPTION IN PARIS. 341 

her wisli to be conveyed to St. Cloud in an open carriage, in- 
stead of the closed State one used on such occasions, took 
note ^f the intention, and acknowledged it with ringing cheers. 
Victor Hugo has said that the Parisian loves to show his 
teeth — he must either be laughing or growling ; and at the 
best of times it is an ungrateful task to analyse too thoroughly 
such manifestations of enthusiasm. There are always as 
many reasons why nations should hate as love each other. 
The sentiment, as expressed by the sailor and soldier alluded 
to just now, did exist — of that I feel sure ; but amidst 
the truly fairy spectacle then presented to the masses that 
crowded the streets, it may have been forgotten for the 
moment. 

For, in spite of the gathering darkness, the scene was 
almost unique. I have only seen another one like it, namely, 
when the troops returned from the Franco- Austrian War; 
and people much older than I declared that the next best 
one was that on the occasion of the return of the Bourbons 
in 1814. 

Though the new northern station, erected on the site of 
the old, had been virtually finished for more than a twelve- 
month, the approaches to it were, if not altogether magnifi- 
cent projects, little more than magnificent mazes, stone and 
mortar Phoenixes, in the act of rising, not risen, from Brob- 
dignagian dust-heaps, and altogether unfit for any kind of 
spectacular procession. Consequently, it had been decided to 
connec' the northern with the eastern line immediately after 
entering the fortifications. The Strasbourg Station did not 
labour under the same disadvantages ; the boulevard of that 
name stretched uninterruptedly as far as the Boulevard St. 
Denis, although, as yet, there were few houses on it. I have 
seen a good many displays of bunting in my time ; I have 
seen Turin and Florence and Rome beflagged and decorated 
on the occasions of popular rejoicings ; I have seen historical 

f recessions in the university towns of Utrecht and Leyden ; 
have seen triumphal entries in Brussels ; I w^as in London 
on Thanksgiving day, but I have never beheld anything to 
compare with the wedged masses of people along the whole 
of the route, as far as the Bois de Boulogne, on that Satur- 
day afternoon. The whole of the suburban population had, 
as it were, flocked into Paris. The regulars lined one side of 
the whole length of the Boulevards, the National Guards the 
other. And there was not a single house form the station to 



3^2 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

the southernmost corner of the Eiie Eoyale that had not its 
emblems, its trophies, its inscriptions of " welcome." With 
that inborn taste which distinguishes the Parisians, the 'deco- 
rator had ceased trying to gild the gold and to paint the lil}^ 
at that point, and had left the magnificent perspective to pro- 
duce its own effect — a few Venetian masts along the Avenue 
de Champs-Elysees and nothing more. Among the notable 
features of the decorations in the main artery of Paris was 
the magnificent triumphal arch, erected by the management 
of the Opera between the Kue de Eichelieu and what is now 
the Eue Drouot. It rose to the fourth stories of the adjacent 
houses, and looked, not a temporary structure, but a monu- 
ment intended to stand the wear and tear of ages. No de- 
scription could convey an idea of its grandeur. The inside 
was draped throughout with bee-bespangled purple, the top 
was decorated with immense eagles, seemingly in full 
flight, and holding between their talons proportionately large 
scutcheons, bearing the interlaced monograms of the Imperial 
hosts and the Royal guests. In front of the Passage de TOpera 
stood an allegorical statue, on a very beautiful pedestal draped 
with flags ; and further on, at the back of the Opera-Comique, 
which really should have been its front,* an obelisk, the base 
of which was a correct representation, in miniature, of the 
Palais de I'lndustrie (the then Exhibition Building). By the 
Madeleine a battalion of the National Guards had erected, 
at their own cost, two more allegorical statutes, France and 
England. A deputation from the National Guards had also 
presented her Majesty with a magnificent bouquet on alight- 
ing from the train. 

By a very delicate attention, the private apartments of the 
Queen had, in many ways, been made to look as much as 
possible like those at Windsor Castle ; and where this trans- 
formation was found impossible by reason of their style of 
decoration — such as, for instance, in the former boudoir of 
Marie-Antoinette, — the mural paintings and those of the 
ceiling had been restored by two renowned artists. In addi- 
tion to this, the most valuable pictures had been borrowed 

* In 1782, wlien Hemtier, the architect, submitted his plan of the building 
which was intended for tlie Italian sintring-actoi-s, the latter offered a deter- 
mined opposition to the idea of the theatre facing the Boulevards, lest they 
should be confounded with the small theatres on the Boulevard du Temple and 
in the direction of the present Boulevard des Filles-du-Calvaire. This extraor- 
dinary vanity was lampooned on all sides, and especially in a quatrain, which. 
I forSear to quote even in French. — Editor, 



SUNDAY AT ST. CLOUD. 343 

from the Louvre to enhance the splendour of the reception 
and dining rooms, while none but crack regiments in full 
dress were told off for duty. 

The day after the Queen's arrival being Sunday, the en- 
tertainment after dinner consisted solely of a private concei't ; 
on the Monday the Queen visited the Fine Arts' Section of 
the Exhibition, which was located in a separate building at 
the top of the Avenue Montaigne, and connected with the 
main structure by beautifully laid-out gardens. The Queen 
spent several hours among the modern masterpieces of all 
nations, and two French artists had the honour of being pve- 
sented. I will not be certain of the names, because I was not 
there, but, as far as I can remember, they were Ingres and 
Horace Vernet, 

While on the subject of art, I cannot help digressing for 
a moment. I may take it that in 1855 a good many English- 
men of the better middle classes, though not exactly ama- 
teurs or connoisseurs of pictures, were acquainted with the 
names, if not with the works, of the French masters of the 
modern school. Well, in that same year, the English school 
burst upon the corresponding classes in France like a revela- 
tion — nay, I may go further still, and unhesitatingly affirm 
that not a few critics, and those of the best, shared the as- 
tonishment of the non-professional multitude. They had 
heard of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Gainsborough, perhaps of 
Turner, but Constable and Moreland, Wilkie and Webster, 
M already, and the rest of the younger school, were simply so 
many names. But when the critics did become aware of 
their existence, their criticisms were simply a delightful series 
of essays, guiding the most ignorant to a due appreciation of 
those Englishmen's talents, not stinting praise, but by no 
means withholding blame, instinctively focussing merits and 
defects in a few brilliant paragraphs, which detected the 
painter's intention and conception as well as his execution 
both from a technical, as well as dramatic, graphic, and pic- 
torial point of view ; which showed, not only the influence of 
general surroundings, but dissected the result of individual 
tendencies. Many a time since, when wading through the 
adipose as. well as verbose columns dealing with similar sub- 
jects in English newspapers, have I longed for the literary 
fieshpots of France, which contained and contain real nour- 
ishing substance, not the fatty degeneration of an ignoramus's 
brain, and, what is worse, of an ignoramus who speaks in 



344 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

numbers from a less valid reason than Pope's ; for the most 
repellant peculiarity of these effusions are the numbers. It 
would seem that these would-be critics, having no more than 
the ordinary auctioneer's intellect, endeavour as mnch as 
possible to assimilate their effusions to a catalogue. They 
are an abomination to the man who can write, though he 
may know nothing about painting, and to the man who 
knows about painting and cannot write. The pictorial 
art of England must indeed be a hardy plant to have sur- 
vived the approval and the disapproval of these barba- 
rians. 

To come back to the Queen, who, after leaving the Palais 
de I'lndustrie, drove to several points of interest in Paris, 
notably to la Sainte-Chapelle. The route taken was by the 
Eue de Rivoli and the Pont-Neuf ; the return journey was 
effected by the Pont-aux-Changes and the eastern end of the 
same street, which had only been opened recently, as far as 
the Place de la Bastille. Then, and then only, her Majesty 
caught sight of the Boulevards in the whole of their extent. 
The decorations of the previous day but one had not been 
touched, and the crowds were simply one tightly wedged-in 
mass of humanity. A journalistic friend had procured me a 
permis de circuler — in other words, '' a police pass," — and I 
made the way from the Boulevard Beaumarchais to Tortoni 
on foot. It may be interesting to those who are always prat- 
ing about the friendship between England and France to 
know that I heard not a single cry of " Vive I'Angleterre ! " 
On the other hand, I heard a great many of " Vive la Peine ! " 
Even the unthinking crowd, though yielding to the excite- 
ment of the moment, seemed to distinguish between the 
country and her ruler. I am not commenting upon this: I 
am merely stating a fact. Probably it is not England's fault 
that she has not been able to inspire the French nation as a 
whole Avith anything like a friendly feeling, but it is as well 
to point it out. During the whole of the Crimean War, nine 
out of every ten educated Frenchmen openly asserted that 
France had been made a cat's-paw by England, that the alli- 
ance was one forced upon the nation by Napoleon from dy- 
nastic and personal, rather than from patriotic and national, 
motives ; there were some who, at the moment of the Queen's 
visit, had the candour to say that this, and this only, would 
be France's reward for the blood and money spent in the 
struggle. At the same time, it is but fair to state that these 



ALEXANDRE DUMAS AND THE QUEEN. 345 

very men spoke both with admiration and respect of Eng- 
land's sovereign. 

At three o'clock there was a brilliant reception at the 
E y.ee, when the members of the corps diplomatique accred- 
irud to the Tuileries were presented to the Queen. Shortly 
after five her Majesty returned to Saint-Cloud, where, in the 
ev'ening, the actors of the Comedie-Fran9aise gave, at the 
Queen's special request, a performance of " Les Demoiselles 
de Saint-Cyr." She had seen the piece in London, and been 
so pleased with it that she wished to see it again. Though I 
was on very intimate terms with Dumas, we had not met for 
several weeks, which was not wonderful, seeing that I was 
frequently appealed to by the son himself for news of his 
father. " What has become of him ? He might be at the 
antipodes for all I see of him," said Alexandre II. about a 
dozen times a year. However, two or three days after the 
performance at Saint-Cloud, I ran against him in the Chaus- 
see d Antin. " Well, you ought to be pleased," I said ; " it ap- 
pears that not only has the Queen asked to see your piece, 
which she had already seen in London, but that she enjoyed 
it even much better the second than the first time." 

" C'est comme son auteur," he replied : " plus on le con- 
nait, plus on I'aime. Je sais pourtant bien ce qui I'aurait 
amusee meme d'avantage que de voir ma piece, c'eut ete de 
me voir moi-meme, et franchement, 9a m'aurait amuse aussi." 

" Then why did not you ask for an audience ? I am cer- 
tain it would have been granted," I remarked, because I felt 
convinced that her Majesty would have been only too j^leased 
to confer an honour upon such a man. 

" En effet, j'y ai pense," came the reply ; " une femme 
aussi reraarquable et qui deviendra probablement la plus 
grande femme du siecle aurait du se rencontrer avec le plus 
grandhomme en France, mais j'ai eu peur qu'on ne me 
traite comme Madame de Stael traitat Saint-Simon. C'est 
dommage, parcequ'elle s'en ira sans avoir vu ce qu'il y de 
mieux dans notre pays, Alexandre, Roi du Monde roma- 
nesque, Dumas I'ignorant." Then he roared with laughter 
and went away.* 

* Alexandre Dumas referred to a story in connection with the Comte de 
Saint-Simon and Madame de Stael which is not very generally known. One 
day the head of the new sect went to see the authoress of "Corinne." "Ma- 
dame," he said, " vous etes la femme la plus remarquable en France ; moi, je 
suis I'homme le plus remarquable. Si nous nous arrangions u vivre quelquea 



346 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

On Tuesday, the 21st, the Queen went to Versailles to in- 
spect the picture-galleries established thereby Louis-Philippe, 
and, in the evening, she was present at a gala-performance at 
the Opera. Next day, she paid a second visit to the Palais 
de rindustrie, but to the industrial section only. In the 
evening, there was a performance of " Le Fils de Famille " 
(" The Queen's Shilling"). On the 23rd, she spent several 
hours at the Louvre ; after which, at night, she attended the 
ball given in her honour by the Municipality of Paris. I shall 
not attempt to describe that entertainment, the decorations 
and flowers of which alone cost three hundred and fifty thou- 
sand francs. The whole had been arranged under the super- 
int3 idence of Ballard, the architect of the Halles Centrales. 
But I remember one little incident which caused a flutter of 
surprise among the court ladies, who, even at that time, had 
already left oti dancing in the pretty old-fashioned way, and 
merely walked through their quadrilles. The royal matron 
of thirty-five, with a goodly family growing up around her, 
executed every step as her dancing master had taught her, 
and with none of the listlessness that was supposed to be the 
" correct thing." I was standing close to Canrobert, who had 
been recalled to resume his functions near the Emperor. 
After watching the Queen for a minute or so, he turned 
round to the lady on his arm. " Pardi, elle danse com me ses 
soldats se battent, 'en veux-tu, en voihi;' et corrects jusqu'a 
la fin." There never was a greater admirer of the English 
soldier than Canrobert. Tlie splendour of that fete at the 
Hotel-de-Ville has only been surpassed once, in 1867, when 
the civic fathers entertained a whole batch of sovereigns. 

On the 2-4th, there was a third visit to the Exhibition, 
and I remember eight magnificent carriages passing down the 
Avenue des Champs-Elysees. They were, however, only 
drawn by two horses each. I was making my way to the 
Champ de Mars, where a review was to be held in honour of 
her Majesty, and had told the cab to wait in the Rue Beau- 
jon, while I stepped into the main road to have a look at the 
beautiful scene. The moment the carriages were past I re- 
turned to the Rue Beaujon, arid ran up against Beranger, 

mois ensemble, nous aurions peut-etre I'cnfant le plus reraarquable sur la terre.' 
Madame de Stael politely declined the honour. As for the epithet of " Pigno- 
rant" which Dumas was fond of applyino^ to himself, it arose from the ftiet of 
Dumas, the celebrated professor of chemistry, being spoken of as "Dumas le 
Bavaut." " Done," laughed the novelist, " je suis Diimas I'ignorant." — Editob. 



BERANGER AND THE QUEEN. 347 

who was living there. The old man seemed in a great hurry, 
which was rather surprising, because he was essentially phleg- 
matic, and rarely put himself out for anything. So I asked 
him the reason of his haste. " I want to see your queen," 
he replied. A year or two before he had refused to go to the 
Tuileries to see the Empress, who had sent for him ; and the 
latter, who could be most charming when she liked, had paid 
him a visit instead. 

" I thought you did not trouble yourself much about 
royalty," I remarked. " You refused to go and see the Em- 
press, and you rush along to see the Queen ? " 

" Non ; je vais voir la femme : s'il y avait beaucoup de 
femmes comme elle, je leur pardonnerais d'etre reines." 

Her Majesty has never heard of this. It was the most 
magnificent and, at the same time, most witty tribute to 
her private virtues. All this happened many, many years 
ago. Since then I have often wondered why Prince Albert, 
who, I feel certain, knew the worth of all these men as well 
as he knew the merit of the litterateurs of his own country, 
did not suggest to his august consort a reception such as she 
gave to the corps diplomatique. It would have been a most 
original thing to do ; the recollection of it would have been 
more delightful even than the most vivid recollections of that 
very wonderful week. 

In those days, France was still looked upon as the first 
military power in Europe. Her soldiers were probably not 
superior to those who fell in the Franco-German war, but 
tlieir prestige had not been questioned. They were also more 
siglitly than the ill-clad legions of the Third Republic, so the 
review was a very splendid affair. At its termination, her 
Majesty repaired to the Invalides, to the tomb of Napoleon, 
which, though it had been begun, as I have incidentally 
stated, under the premiership of M. Guizot in 1846-47, was 
not finished then, and only officially inaugurated nearly six 
years afterwards. 

My ticket for the review had been given to me by Mar- 
shal Vaillant, the minister for war, and the only Marshal of 
the Second Empire with whom I was, at that time, intimately 
acquainted ; though I became on very friendly terms with 
Marshals MacMahon and Lebrun subsequently. 

I will devote, by-and-by, a few notes to this most original 
soldier-figure — he was only a type in some respects ; mean- 
while, I may mention here an anecdote, in connection with 



348 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

this visit of the Queen, characteristic of the man. The 
governor of the Invalides was the hite King of Westphalia, 
Jerome Bonaparte. It was but natural that he should have 
been chosen as the custodian of his brother's last resting- 
place. It was equally natural that he should feel reluctant 
to meet at that tomb the sovereign of a country which, he con- 
sidered, had tortured that brother to death. Consequently 
the last survivor of the elder Bonapartes, the one who had 
also fought at Waterloo, foreseeing, as it were, this pilgrim- 
age on the part of her Majesty, had, a fortnight or so before 
the date of her intended visit, gone to Havre, whither he had 
been ordered by his doctor on account of his health, and 
whence he only returned when the Queen of England had 
left France. 

The deputy-governor of the Invalides was, perhaps, not 
considered sufficiently important to do the honours to so 
illustrious a visitor, and Marshal Vaillant was sounded wheth- 
er he would undertake the functions. He declined. " Je 
n'ai pas I'honneur, sire," he said, " d'appartenir a votre 
illustre famille et personne sauf la famille d'un grand homme 
a le droit d'oublier les souffrances que ses ennemis lui ont in- 
fligees." He was an honest, upright soldier, abrupt and self- 
willed, but kindly withal, and plainly perceived the faults of 
Louis-Napoleon's policy and of his frequently misplaced 
generosity — above all, of his system of conciliating the sov- 
ereigns of Europe by fetes and entertainments. " Quand 
I'autre leur donnait des fetes et des representations de thea- 
tre, c'etait chez eux, et pas chez nous, ils en payaient les 
frais." More of him in a little while. 

At the Queen's first visit to Versailles— the second took 
place on the Saturday before she left — she had been deeply 
moved at the sight of the picture representing her welcome 
at Eu by Louis-Philippe, to which ceremony I alluded in one 
of my former notes. But even before this she had expressed 
a wish to see the ruins of the Chateau de Neuilly, and the 
commemorative chapel erected on the spot where the Due 
d'Orleans met with his fatal accident. " La femme qui est si 
fidele a ses vieilles amities au milieu des nouvelles, surtout 
quand il s'agit de dynasties rivales, comme en ce moment, et 
quand cette femme est une reine, cette femme est une amie 
bien precieuse," said Jerome's son. Both tlie Emperor and 
the Empress found that their cousin had spoken truly. 

Saturday, the 25th, had been fixed for the fete at Ver- 



FETES AT VERSAILLES. 349 

sailles. In the morning, the Queen went to the palace of 
Saint-Germain, which no Englisli sovereign had visited since 
James II. lived there. She returned to Saint-Cloud, and 
thence to the magnificent abode of Louis XIV., which she 
reached after dark — the Place d'Armes and the whole of the 
erstwhile royal residence being brilliantly illuminated. 

The Imperial and Royal party ent(U'ed by the Marble 
Court, in the centre of which the pedestal to the statue of 
Louis XIV. had been decorated with the rarest flowers. The 
magnificent marble staircase had, however, been laid with 
thick purple carpets, and the balustrades almost disappeared 
beneath masses of exotics ; it was the first time, if I remem- 
ber rightly, that I had seen mosses and ferns and foliage in 
such profusion. The Cent Gardes and the Guides de ITm- 
peratrice were on duty, the former on the staircase itself, the 
latter below, in the vestibule. At the top, to the right and 
left, the private apartments of the Empress had been ar- 
ranged, the Queen occupied those formerly belonging to 
Marie-Antoinette. I was enabled to see these a few days 
later ; they were the most perfect specimens of the decorative 
art that flourished under Louis XVI. I have ever beheld. 
The boudoir was upholstered in light blue, festoons of roses 
running along the walls, and priceless Dresden groups dis- 
tributed everywhere ; the dressing-rooms were hung with 
pale green, with garlands upon garlands of violets. The 
toilet service was of Sevres, with medallions after Lancret 
and Watteau. The historical Salle de FCEil-de-Bceuf, which 
preceded her Majesty's apartments, had been transformed 
into a splendid reception-room for the use of the Imperial 
hosts and all their Royal guests, for there were one or two 
foreign princes besides, notably Prince Adalbert of Bavaria. 

The ball was to take place in the famous Galerie des 
Glaces ; the Empress herself had presided ut its transforma- 
tion, which had been inspired by a well-known print of " Une 
Fete sous Louis Quinze." More garlands of roses, but thic 
time drooping from the ceiling and connecting the forty 
splendid lustres, which, together with the candelabra on the 
walls, could not have contained less than three thousand wax 
candles. At each of the four angles of the vast apartment a 
small orchestra had been erected, but very high up, and sur- 
rounded by a network of gilt wire. 

At the stroke of ten those wonderful gardens became all 
of a sudden ablaze with rockets and Chinese candles ; it was 



350 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PAPaS. 

the beginning of the fireworks, the principal piece of which 
represented Windsor Castle. After this, the ball was opened 
by the Queen and the Emperor, the Empress and Prince 
Albert ; but though the example had been given, there was 
very little dancing. I was a comparatively young man then, 
but I was too busy feasting my eyes with the marvellous 
toilettes to pay much heed to the seductive strains, which at 
other times would have set me tripping. I fancy this was 
the case with most of the guests. 

On the Monday the Queen left for horn©. 



MARSHAL VAILLANT. 35I 



CHAPTER XVIIL 

Marshal Vaillant — The becrinninfif of our acquaintance — His stories of the swash- 
bucklers of the First Empire, and the beaux of the Kestauration — Rabe- 
laisian, but clever — Marshal Vaillant neither a swashbuckler nor a beau; 
hated both — Never cherished the ^liirhtest illusions about the efficiency of 
the French army — Acknowledged himself unable to effect the desired and 
necessary reformtJ — To do that, a minister of war mut^t become a fixture — 
Why he stayed — Careful of the public moneys, and of the Emperor's also — 
Napoleon lll.'s lavishness — An instance of it — Vaillant never dazzled by 
the grandeur of court entertainments — Not dazzled by anything — His hatred 
of wind-bags — Prince de Canino — Matutinal interviews — Prince de Canine 
sends his seconds? — Vaillant declines the meeting, and gives his reason — 
Vaillant abrupt at the best of times — A freezing reception — A comic inter- 
view—Attempts to shirk military duty— Tricks — Mistakes— A story in 
point — More tricks — Sham ailments: how the marshal dealt Avith thera — 
vVheu the marshal was not in an amiable mood — Another interview — Vail- 
lant's tactics — " D d annoying to be wrong" — The marshal fond of sci- 
ence — A very interesting scientilic phenomenon himself — Science under 
the later Bourbons — Suspicion of the soldiers of the Empire — The priest- 
hood and the police — The most godless republic preferable to a continuance 
of their regime — The marshal's dog, Brusca— Her dislike to civilians — 
Brusca's chastity — Vaillant's objection to insutficiently prepaid letters— His 
habit of missing the train, notwithstanding his precautions — His objection 
to fuss and public honours. 

About two or three days after tlie ball at Versailles, I 
went to see Marshal Vaillant at the War Office, to thank him 
for his kindness in sending me the ticket for the review. 
Our acquaintance was already then of a couple of 3'ears' 
standing. It had begun at Dr. Veron's, who lived, at the 
time, at the corner of the Rue de Eivoli and the Rue de 
Castiglione. The old soldier — he was over sixty then — had 
a very good memory, and used to tell me garrison stories, 
love-adventures of the handsome swashbucklers of the First 
Empire and of the beaux of the Restauration. The language 
was frequently that of Rabelais or Moliere, vigorous, to the 
point, calling a spade a spade, and, as such, not particularly 
adapted to these notes, but the narrator himself was neither 
a swashbuckler nor a beau ; he hated the carpet-knight only 
one degree more than the sabreur, and when both were com- 
bined in the same man — not an unusual thing during the 



352 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Second Empire, especially after the Crimean and Franco- 
Austrian wars — he simply loathed him. He fostered not the 
slightest illusions about the efficiency of the French army, 
albeit that, to an alien like myself and notwithstanding his 
friendship for me, he would veil his strictures. At the same 
time, he frankly acknowledged himself unable to effect the 
desired reforms. " It wants, first of all, a younger and abler 
man than I am ; secondly, he must become a fixture. No 
change of ministry, no political vicissitudes ought to affect 
him. I do not play a political role, and never mean to play 
one ; and if I could find a man who would carry out the re- 
forms at the War Office, or, rather, reorganize the whole as 
it should be reorganized, I Avould make room for him to- 
morrow I know what you are going to say. I derive a very 
comfortable income from my various offices, and I am a 
pluralist. If I did not take the money, some one else would 
who has not got a scrap more talent than I have. There is 
not a single man who dare tell the nation that its army is 
rotten to the core, that there is not a general who knows as 
much as a mere captain in the Austrian and Prussian armies; 
and it he had the courage to tell the nation, he would be 
hounded out of the country, his life would be made a burden 
to him. That is one of the reasons why I am staying, be- 
cause I can do no good by going; on the contrary, I might 
do a good deal of harm. Because, as you see it, the three 
hundred and fifty thousand francs of my different appoint- 
ments, I save them by looking after the money of the State. 
Not that I can do much, but I do what I can." 

That was very true : he was very careful of the public 
moneys, and of the resources of the Emperor also, entrusted 
to him by virtue of his position as Grand-Marechal du Palais; 
it was equally true that he could not do much. Napoleon 
was, by nature, lavish and soft-hearted ; as a consequence, he 
became the butt of every impostor who could get a letter con- 
veyed to him. His civil list of over a million and a half 
sterling was never sufficient. He himself was simple enough 
in his tastes, but he knew that pomp and state were dear to 
the heart of Frenchmen, and he indulged them accordingly. 
But his charity was a personal matter. He could have no 
more done without it than without his eternal cigarette. He 
called the latter " safety-valve of the brain ; the former the 
safety-valve of pride." I remember an anecdote which was 
told to me by some one who was in his immediate entourage 



LOUIS-XAPOLi:ON'S GENEROSITY. 353 

when he was only President. It was on the eve of a journey 
to some provincial town, and at the termination of a cabinet 
council. While talking to some of his ministers, he took a 
couple of iive-franc pieces from his waistcoat, and spun them 
English fashion. " C'est tout ce qui me reste pour mon voy- 
age de demain, messieurs," he said, smiling. One of them, 
M. Ferdinand Barrot, saw that he was in earnest, and bor- 
rowed ten thousand francs, which the President found on his 
dressing-table when retiring for the night. Four and twenty 
hours after, JS'apoleon had not even liis two five-franc pieces: 
they and M. Barrot's loan had disappeared in subscriptions to 
local charities. Among the papers found at the Tuileries 
after the Emperor's flight, there were over two thousand beg- 
ging letters, all dated within a twelvemonth, and all marked 
with their answer in the corner — that is, with the amount 
sent in reply. That sum amounted to not less than sixty 
thousand francs. And be it remembered that these were the 
petitions the Emperor had not entrusted to his secretaries or 
ministers as coming within their domain. The words of 
Marshal Vaillant, spoken many years before, " I cannot do 
much, but I do what 1 can," are sufficiently explained. 

On the day alluded to above, the marshal was seriously 
complaining of the Emperor's extravagance. He did not 
hold with entertaining so many sovereigns. " I do not say 
this," he added, "with regard to yours, for her hospitality de- 
served such return as the Emperor gave her ; but with regard 
to the others who will come, you may be sure, if we last long 
enough. Well, we'll see; perhaps you'll remember my 
words." 

In fact, the old soldier was never much dazzled by the 
grandeur of those entertainments, nor did he foster many 
illusions with regard to their true value in cementing inter- 
national friendships. The marshal was not dazzled by any- 
thing ; and though deferential enough to the members of the 
emperor's family, he never scrupled to tell them his mind. 
The Emperor's cousin (Plon-Plon) could tell some curious 
stories to that effect. The marshal had a hatred of long- 
winded people, and especially of what Carlyle calls wind-bags. 
Another of Louis-Xapoleon's cousins came decidedly under 
the latter description : I allude to the Prince de Canino. In 
order to get rid as much as possible of wordy visitors, Vaillant 
had hit upon the method of granting them their interviews 
at a veri/, very early hour in the morning ; in the summer at 



354 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

G.30 in the morning, in the winter at 7.15. " People do not 
like getting out of bed at that time, unless they have some- 
thing serious to communicate," he said ; and would not relax 
his rule, even for the softer sex. The old warrior, who had 
probably been an early riser all his life, found the arrange- 
ment work so well, that he determined at last not to make 
any exceptions. "I get the day to myself," he laughed. 
Now, it so happened that the Prince de Canino asked him 
for an interview ; and, as a matter of course, Vaillant ap- 
pointed the usual hour. Next morning, to Vaillant's great 
surprise, instead of the Prince, came two of his friends. The 
latter came to ask satisfaction of Vaillant for having dared 
to disturb a personage of the Prince's importance at so early 
an hour. "Mais je ne Tai pas derange du tout: il n'avait 
qu'a ne pas venir, ce que du reste, il a fait," said Vaillant; 
then he added, " Mais, meme, si je consentais a donner raison 
au prince de mon offense imaginaire, je ne me battrai pas a 
quatre heures de Papres-midi ; done, il aurait a se derauger; 
il vaut mieux qu'il reste dans son lit. Je vous salue, mes- 
sieurs." With which he bowed them out. When the Em- 
peror heard of it, he laughed till the tears ran down his 
cheeks, and Napoleon did not laugh outright very often or 
easily. 

There are a great many stories about this objection of 
Marshal Vaillant to be troubled for nothing; and, as usual, 
they overshoot the mark. He is supposed to have acted very 
cavalierly with highly placed personages, and even with ladies 
in very high society. Of course, I was never present at in- 
terviews of that kind, but during my long acquaintance with 
him, I was often seated at his side when less exalted visitors 
were admitted. At the best of times his manner was abrupt, 
though rarelv rude, unless there was a reason for it, albeit 
that 'the outsider might fail to fathom it at the first blush. 
I remember being with him in his private room, somewhere 
about the sixties, when his attendant brought him a card. 

"Show the gentleman in," said Vaillant, after having 
looked at it. 

Enter, a tall, well-dressed individual, the rosette of the 
Locrion of Honour in his button-hole, evidently a retired 
officer. 

" What is it you want with me ? " asked the marshal, who 
had remained seated with his back towards the visitor. 

" Being in Paris for the Christmas and New Year's holi- 



VAILLANT AT HIS WORST. 355 

days, your excellency, I thought it my duty to pay my re- 
spects to you." 

" Is that all you want with me ? " asked the marshal. 

" That is all, your excellency," stammered the visitor. 

" Very well : then I'll wish you good morning." 

I suppose I must have looked somewhat shocked at this 
very unceremonious proceeding, for, when the door was closed, 
the marshal explained. 

" You need not think that I have done him an injustice. 
When fellows like this present their respects it always means 
that they want me to present them with something else ; that 
is why I cut them short." 

So netirnes these interviews took a comical turn, for the 
marshal could be very witty when he liked. In the land of 
"equality," everybody is always on the look-out for greater 
privileges than his fellows, and in no case were and are 
favours more indiscriminately requested than with the view 
of avoiding military service. A thousand various pretexts, 
most of them utterly ridiculous, were brought forward by the 
parents to preserve their precious sons from the hated bar- 
rack life. In many instances, a few years of soldiering would 
have done those young hopefuls a great deal of good, be- 
cause those who clamoured loudest for exemption were only 
spending their time in idleness and mischief. In the prov- 
inces there was a chance of influencing the conseil de re- 
vision by means of the prefet, if the parents were known to 
be favourable to the government ; by means of the bishops, 
if they still had a hankering after the former dynasties ; and, 
not to mince matters, if they were simply rich, by means of 
bribery. In Paris the matter was somewhat more difficult ; 
the members of the council were frequently changed at the 
last moment, and at all times the recruits to be examined 
were too numerous for a parent to trust to the memory of 
those members. The military authorities had introduced a 
new rule, to the effect that the names of the recruits to be 
examined should not be called out until their examination 
was finished ; and, with the best will in the world, it is often 
diHicult to distinguish between un fils de famille and a down- 
right plebeian if both happen to come before you "as God 
made them." Consequently, notwithstanding the considerable 
ingenuity of the parties interested to let the examining sur- 
geon-major known " who was who," mistakes frequently oc- 
curred ; the young artisan, who had no more the matter with 



356 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

him than the young wealthy bourgeois, was dismissed as unfit 
for the service, while the latter was pronounced apt in every 
respect. 

Apropos of this, I know a good story, for the truth of 
which I can vouch, because it happened to a member of the 
family with which 1 became connected by marriage after- 
wards. He had a son who was of the same age as his coach- 
man's. Both the lads went to draw at the same time, both 
drew low numbers. The substitute system was still in force, 
but, just at that moment, there was a war-scare — not without 
foundation — and substitutes reached high prices. It would 
not have mattered much to the rich man. Unfortunately, 
he was tight-fisted, and the mother pleaded in vain. The 
wife was just as extravagant as the husband was mean ; she 
had no savings, and she cudgelled her brain to find the means 
of preserving her darling from the vile contact of his social 
inferiors without putting her hand in her pocket — which, 
moreover, was empty. She went a great deal into society, 
was very handsome, clever, and fascinating. By dint of 
ferreting, she got to know the probable composition of the 
conseil de revision — barring accidents. History does not 
say how, but she wheedled the surgeon-major into giving her 
a distinct promise to do his best for her dear son. Of course, 
in order to do some good, the surgeon had to see the young 
fellow first ; and there was the difficulty, because madame 
had made the acquaintance of the officer under peculiar cir- 
cumstances, and could not very well introduce him to her 
home : besides, just on account of the war-scare, the authori- 
ties had become very strict, the practices of many officers 
were suspected, and it would never have done for the gentle- 
man to give his superiors as much as a loophole for their 
suspicion by visiting the lady. Time was getting short; the 
acquaintance had ripened into friendship very quickly, be- 
cause, three days before the time appointed for the sitting of 
the council, madame had never seen the surgeon, and on the 
eve of that sitting the final arrangement had been concluded. 
It was to this effect : that madame's son would pretend to 
have hurt his hand, and appear with a black silk bandage 
round his wrist. The thing is scarcely credible, but the 
coachman's son, an engine-fitter, had hurt his wrist, and put 
a strip of black ribbon round it. The coachman's family 
name began with a B, the lady's name with a C. The coach- 
man's son was taken for the other, and declared unfit for 



TRICKS TO AVOID MILITARY SERVICE. 357 

military service by reason of his chest, to his great surprise 
and joy, as may be imagined. But the surprise, though not 
the joy, of the examining officer was greater still when, in 
the next batch, another young fellow appeared with a strip 
of black ribbon round his wrist. To ask his name was an 
impossibility. The surgeon was afraid that he had been be- 
trayed, or that his secret had leaked out, and, without a mo- 
ment's hesitation, declared the real Simon Pure sound in 
lungs and limb. 

1 am afraid I have drifted a little bit from Marshal Vail- 
lant's comical interviews, but am coming back to them in a 
roundabout way. The common, or garden trick to get those 
young fellows exempted, where bribery was impossible or 
private influence out of the question, was to make them sham 
short-sightedness, or deafness, or impediment in the speech. 
We have heard before now of professors who cure people of 
stammering : it is a well-known fact that in those days there 
was a professor who taught people to stammer; while, per- 
sonally, I know an optician on the Boulevard des Italians 
whose father made a not inconsiderable fortune by spoilmg 
young fellows' sights — that is, by training them, for a twelve- 
month before the drawing of lots, to wear very powerful 
lenses. Of course, this had to be done gradually, and his fee 
was a thousand francs. I have known him to have as many 
as twenty or thirty pupils at a time. No doubt the authori- 
ties were perfectly aware of this, but they had no power to 
interfere. The process for " teaching deafness " was even a 
more complicated one, but it did succeed for a time in im- 
posing upon the experts, until, by a ministerial decree, it 
was resolved to draft all these clever stammerers, and even 
those who were really suffering from the complaints the others 
simulated, into the transport and medical services. 

It was then that Marshal Vaillant was overwhelmed with 
visits from anxious matrons who wanted to save their sons, 
and that the comical interviews took place. 

" But, excellency, my son is really as deaf as a post," one 
would exclaim. 

" All the better, madame : he won't be frightened at the 
first sound of serious firing. Nearly all young recruits are 
terror-stricken at the first whizzing of the bullets around 
ihem. I was, myself, I assure you. He'll make an admira- 
ble soldier." 

" But he won't be able to hear the word of command." 



358 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

" Not necessary, madame ; he'll only have to watch the 
others, and do as they do. Besides, we'll draft him into the 
cavalry : it is really the charger that obeys the signals, not the 
trooper. It will be an advantage to him to be deaf in the 
barrack-room, for there are many things said there that 
would bring a blush to his nice innocent cheeks ; and, upon 
the whole, it is best he should not hear them. I have the 
honour to wish you good morning, madame." 

And though the woman knew that the old soldier was 
mercilessly chaffing her and her milksop son, the thing was 
done so politely and so apparently seriously on the marshal's 
part, that she was fain to take no for an answer. 

On one occasion, it appears — for the marshal liked to tell 
these tales, and he was not a bad mimic — he had just dis- 
missed a lady similarly afflicted with a deaf son, when an- 
other entered whose offspring suffered from an impediment 
in his speech. " Madame," the marshal said, without mov- 
ing a muscle, " your son will realize the type of the soldier 
immortalized by M Scribe in ' Les Huguenots.' You know 
what Marcel sings." And, striking a theatrical attitude, he 
trolled — 

" ' Un vieux soldat salt souffrir et se taire 
Sans murmurer.' 

With this additional advantage," he went on, " that your 
son will be a young one. I can, however, promise you an- 
other comfort. A lady has just left me whose son is as deaf 
as a post. I'll not only see that your son is drafted into the 
same company, but I'll make it my special business to have 
their beds placed side by side. The }■ oung fellow can go on 
stammering as long as he likes, it won't offend his comrade's 
hearing." 

" But my son is very short-sighted, as blind as a bat, your 
excellency ; he won't be able to distinguish the friend from 
the foe," expostulated a third lady. 

" Don't let that trouble you, madame," was the answer ; 
*' we'll put him in the infantry : he has only got to blaze 
away, he is sure to hit some one or something." 

These were the scenes when the marshal was in an amia- 
ble mood; when he was not, he would scarcely suffer the 
slightest remark; but, if the remark was ventured upon, it 
had to be effectual, to be couched in language as abrupt as 
his. " Soft-sawder " he hated above all things ; and even 



VAILLANT AT HIS BEST. 359 

when he was wrong, he would not admit it to any one who 
whined or spoke prettily. On the other hand, when the vis- 
itor or petitioner became as violent as he was himself, he 
often reversed his decision. One day, while waiting for the 
marshal, I met in the anteroom an individual who, by his 
surly looks, was far from pleased. After striding up and 
down for a while, he began to bang on the table, and to 
shout at the top of his voice, calling the old soldier all kinds 
of names. Out came the marshal in his shirt-sleeves — the 
moment the lady-visitors were gone he always took oil his 
coat. " Come back, monsieur," he said to the individual. 
In a few moments, the latter came out of the marshal's pri- 
vate room, his face beaming with joy. Then I went in, and 
found the marshal rubbing his hands with glee. " A capital 
fellow, after all, a capital fellow," he kept on saying. 

" He may be a capital fellow," I remarked, " but he is not 
very choice in his language." 

" That's only his way ; he does not like to be refused 
things, but he is a capital fellow for all that, and that's why 
1 granted his request. If he had whined about it, I should 
not have done so, though I think he is entitled to what he 
came for." 

Strategical skill, in the sense the G-ermans have taught us 
since to attach to the word. Marshal Vaillant had little or 
none. Most of his contemporaries, even the younger gen- 
erals, were scarcely better endowed than their official chief. 
They were all good soldiers when it came to straightforward 
fighting, as they had been obliged to do in Africa, but there 
was not a great leader, scarcely an ordinary tactician, among 
them. As I have already shown, among the men most pain- 
fully aware of this was the marshal himself ; nevertheless, 
when he once made up his mind to a course of action, it was 
almost impossible to dissuade him from it. He had set his 
heart upon Marshal Niel occupying the Aland island during 
the winter of '54-55, in the event of Bomarsund falling into 
French hands. He did not for a moment consider that the 
fourteen thousand troops were too few to hold it, if the Rus- 
sians cared to contest its possession, — too many, if they mere- 
ly confined themselves to intercepting the supplies, which 
they could have done without much difficulty. A clever 
young diplomatist, who knew more about those parts than 
the whole of the intelligence department at the Ministry for 
War, at last made him abandon his decision. I came in as 



3C0 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

he went out ; the marshal was as surly as a bear with a sore 
head. " Clever fellow this," he growled, " very clever fel- 
low." Aud then, in short jerky sentences, he told me the 
whole of the story, asking my opinion as to who was right 
and who was wrong. I told him frankly that I thought that 
the young diplomatist was right. " That's what I think," 

he spluttered ; " but you'll admit that it is d d annoying 

to be wrong." 

It would be wrong to infer that the marshal, though defi- 
cient as a strategist, was the rough-and-ready soldier, indif- 
ferent to more cultured pursuits, as so many of his fel- 
low-officers were. He was very fond of certain branches of 
science, and rarely missed a meeting of the scientific section 
of the Academic, of which he was a member. What at- 
tracted him most, however, was astronomy; next to that 
came entomology and botany. Still, though an enthusiast, 
and often risking a cold to observe an astral phenomenon, he 
objected to wasting thousands of pounds for a similar pur- 
pose ; in fact, when it came to disbursing government money 
for a scientific or other vaguely defined purpose, his economic 
tendencies got the better of him. " I am a very interesting 
scientific phenomenon myself," he used to say, " or, at any rate, 
I was ; and yet no one spent any money to come and see me." 

He was alluding to a fact which he often told me him- 
self, and afterwards narrated in his " memoirs." 

" For a long while, especially from 1818 to 18-30, when 
the w^eather happened to be very dry and cold, aud when I 
returned to my grateless, bumble room, after having spent 
the day in heated apartnients, I was both the spectator and 
the medium of strange electrical phenomena. 

" The moment I had undressed and stood in my shirt, 
the latter began to crackle and became absolutely luminous, 
emitting a lot of sparks ; the tails stuck together, and re- 
mained like that for some time." 

I asked him, on one occasion, whether he had ever com- 
municated all this to scientific authorities. His answer, 
though not a direct one to my question, was not only very 
characteristic of the mental and moral attitude of the sol- 
diers of the Empire towards the Bourbons, but, to a great 
extent, of the attitude of the Bourbons themselves towards 
everybody and everything that was not absolutely in accord- 
ance with the policy, sociology, and religious tenets of their 
adherents, whether laymen or priests. 



VAILLANT ON THE LATER BOURBONS. 3G1 

" You must remember, my dear fellow," he replied, " the 
regime under which we lived when I was subject to those 
electrical manifestations ; you must further remember that 
I had fought at Ligny and at Waterloo, and, though not ab- 
solutely put on the retired list in 1815, I and the rest of the 
Emperor's soldiers were watched, and our most innocent acts 
construed into so many small attempts at conspiracy. You 
have not the slightest idea what the police were like under 
the Restauration, let alone the priesthood. If I couple these 
two, I am not speaking at random. If I had communicated 
the things I told you of, to no matter what savant, he would 
necessarily have published the result of his observations and 
experiments, and do you know wdiat would have happened ? 
I should have been tried, and perhaps condemned, for witch- 
craft — yes, for witchcraft, — or else I should have been taken 
hold of by the priests, not as a scientific phenomenon, but as 
a religious one, a kind of stigmatise. They w^ould have 
made it out to their satisfaction that I was either half a 
saint, or a whole devil, and in either case my life would 
have become a burden to me. Only those who have lived 
under the Bourbons can form an idea of the terrorizing 
to which they lent themselves. People may tell you that 
they were kind and charitable, and this, that, and the other. 
There never were greater tyrants than they were at heart ; 
and if the Due d'Angouleme or the Comte de Chambord 
had come to the throne, France would have sunk to the 
intellectual level of Spain. I would sooner see the most 
godless republic than a return of that state of things, and I 
need not tell you that I firmly believe that not a sparrow 
falls to the earth without God's will. No, I held my tongue 
about my electrical sensations ; if I had not, you would not 
now be talking to Marshal Vaillant — I should have become a 
jabbering idiot, if I had lived long enough." It is the 
longest speech I have ever heard the marshal make. 

The marshal's own rooms were simply crammed with 
cases full of beetles, butterflies, etc. The space not taken 
up by these was devoted to herbariums; and in the midst 
of the most interesting conversation — interesting to the 
listener especially, for the old soldier was an inexhaustible 
mine of anecdote — he, the listener, would be invited to look 
at a bit of withered grass or a wriggling caterpillar. 

After the Franco- A.ustrian war, there was an addition 
to the marshal's household — I might say family, for the old 



362 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

man became as fond of Brusca as if she had been a human 
being. The story went that she had been bequeathed to 
him at Solf erino by her former master, an Austrian general ; 
and the marshal did not deny it. At any rate, he found 
Brusca sitting by the dying man, and licking the blood 
oozing from his wounds. 

Brusca was not much to look at, and you might safely 
have defied a committee of the most eminent authorities on 
canine breeds to determine hers, but she was very intelligent, 
and of a most affectionate disposition. Nevertheless, she 
was always more or less distant with civilians : it took me 
many years to worm myself into her good graces, and I am 
almost certain that I was the oi\\y pek in thus favoured. The 
very word made her prick up her ears, show her teeth, and 
straighten her tail as far as she could. For the appendage 
did not lend itself readily to the effort ; it was in texture like 
that of a colley or Pomeranian, and twisted like that of a 
pug. Curiously enough, her objection to civilians did not 
extend to the female portion, but the sight of a blouse drove 
her frantic with rage. On such occasions, she had to be 
chained up. As a rule, however, Brusca's manifestations, 
whether of pleasure or the reverse, were uttered in a minor 
key and unaccompanied by any change of position on her 
part. She mostly lay at the marshal's feet, if she was not 
perched on the back of his chair, for Brusca Avas not a large 
dog. She accompanied the marshal in his walks and drives, 
she sat by his side at table, she slept on a rug at the foot of 
his bed. Now and then she took a gentle stroll through the 
apartment, carefully examining the dried plants and beetles. 
But one day, or rather one evening, there was a complete 
change in her behaviour : it was at one of the marshal's 
receptions, on the occasion of Emperor Francis-Joseph's visit 
to Paris. Some of the officers of his Majesty's suite had 
been invited, and at the sight of the, to her, once familiar 
uniforms her delight knew no bounds. She was standing at 
the top of the landing when she caught sight of them, and 
all those present thought for a moment that the creature 
was going mad. As a matter of course, Brusca was not 
allowed to come into the reception-rooms, but on that night 
there was no keeping her out. Locked up in the marshal's 
bed-room, she made the place ring with her barks and yells, 
and they had to let her out. With one bound she was in the 
drawing-rooms, and for three hours she did not leave the side 



VAILLANT AND HIS DOG. 363 

of the Austrian officers. When they took their departure, 
Brusca was perfectly ready, nay eager, to abandon her home 
and her fond master for their sake, and had to be forcibly 
prevented from doing so. The marshal did not know 
whether to cry or to laugh, but in the end he felt ready to 
forgive Brusca for her contemplated desertion of him in 
favour of her countrymen. Some one who objected to the 
term got the snub direct. "Je maintiens ce que j'ai dit, 
compatriotes ; et je serais rudement fier d'avoir une com- 
patriote comme elle." 

If possible, Brusca from that moment rose in the mar- 
shal's estimation ; she was a perfect paragon. " Cette chi- 
enne n'a pas seulement toutes les qualites de son genre, elle 
n'a meme pas les vices de son sexe. Elle m'aime tellement 
bien qu'elle ne vent etre distraite par aucun autre amour. 
Elle vit dans le plus rigoureux celibat. La malheureuse," 
he said every now and then, "elle a failli se compro- 
mettre." 

In spite of the marshal's boast about Brusca's morals, he 
was one day compelled to admit a faux pas on her part, and 
for some weeks the " vet " had an anxious time for it. " Elle 
a mal tourne, mais que voulez-vous, je ne vais pas I'abandon- 
ner." And when the crisis was over: "Son incartade ne 
lui a pas porte bonheur. Esperons que la le^on lui pro- 
fitera." 

Brusca had her portrait painted by the " Michael-Angelo 
of dogs," Jadin, and when it was finished the visitors were 
given an opportunity of admiring it in the drawing-room, 
where it was on view for several consecutive Tuesdays. 
After that, a great many of the marshal's familiars, supposed 
to be capable of doing justice to Brusca's character in verse, 
were appealed to, to write her panegyric, but though several 
Academicians tried their hands, their lucubrations were not 
deemed worthy to be inscribed on the frame of Brusca's por- 
trait, albeit that one or two — the first in Greek — were en- 
grossed on vellum, and adorned the drawing-room table. 
The effusion that did eventually adorn the frame was by an 
anonymous author — it was shrewdly suspected that it was by 
the marshal himself, and ran as follows : — 

" Si je suis pres de lui, c'est que je le merite. 
Revez raon sort brilliant; revez, ambitieux ! 
Du bien de mon raaitre en ami je profite, 
J'aimerais son pain nor s'il etait malheureux." 



36 i AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Another peculiarity of Marshal Yaillant was never to ac- 
cept a letter not prepaid or insufficiently paid. The rule 
was so strictly enforced, both in his private and official ca- 
pacity, that many a valuable report was ruthlessly refused, 
and had to be traced afterwards through the various post- 
offioes of Europe. 

Seven times out of ten the marshal, when travelling by 
himself, missed his train. This would lead one to infer that 
he was unpunctual ; on the contrary, he was the spirit of 
punctuality. Unfortunately, he over-did the thing. He 
generally reached the station half an hour or three-quarters 
before the time, seated himself down in a corner, dozed off, 
and did not wake up until it was too late. The marshal was 
a native of Dyon ; and at Nuits, situated between the former 
town and Beaune, there lived a middle-aged spinster cousin 
whom he often went to visit. He nearly always returned by 
the last train to Dyon, where he had his quarters at the 
Hotel de la Cloche ; and although often in the midst of a 
pleasant family party, insisted upon leaving long before it 
was necessary. As a matter of course, the station was in 
semi-darkness — for Nuits is not a large place — and the book- 
ing-office was not open. One night, it being very warm, he 
stretched himself leisurely on a grass plot, instead of on the 
hard seat, and there he was found at six in the morning ; 
several trains had come and gone, but no one had dared to 
wake him. " Mais, monsieur le marechal, on aurait cru vous 
manquer de respect en vous eveillant. Apres tout, vous 
n'etes pas tout le monde, il y des distinctions," said the sta- 
tionmaster apologetically. "La mort et le sommeil, mon- 
sieur," was the answer, " font table rase de toute distinction." 
It was a French version of our " Death levels all : " the mar- 
shal was fond of paraphrasing quotations, especially from the 
Eiglish, of which he had a very fair knowledge, having 
translated some military works many years before. How- 
ever, from that day forth, instructions were given to take no 
heed of his rank, and to awaken him like any other mortal, 
rathsr than have him miss his train. 

In fact, the marshal did not like to be constantly remind- 
ed of his rank ; if anything, he was rather proud of his very 
humble origin, and, instead of hiding his pedigree like a good 
many parvenus, he took delight in publishing it. I have 
seen a letter of his to some one who inquired on the subject, 
not from sheer curiosity. " My grandfather was a silkmercer 



VAILLANT POINDS HIS MATCH. 365 

in a small way on the place St. Vincent, at Dyon. His 
father had been a coppersmith. I am unable to trace back 
further than that ; my quarters of nobility stop there. Let 
me add, at the same time, that there is no more silly proverb 
than the one ' Like father like son.' My father died poor, 
and respected by every one. I do not believe that he had a 
single enemy. His friends called him Christ, he was so good 
and kind to everybody. I am not the least like him. He 
was short and slini, I am rather tall and stout ; he was gen- 
tle, and people say that I am abrupt and harsh. In short, he 
had as many virtues as I am supposed to have faults, and I 
am afraid the world is not at all mistaken in that respect." 

I, who knew him as w^ell as most people, am afraid that 
the world was very much mistaken. As a matter of course, 
the old soldier had many faults, but his good qualities far 
outweighed the latter. He was modest to a degree, and the 
flatteries to w^hich men in his position are naturally exposed 
produced not the slightest effect upon him. When in an 
amiable mood, he used to cut them short with a " Oui, oui ; 
le marechal Vaillant est un grand homme, il n'y a pas de 
doute ; tout le monde est d'accord sur ce chapitre la, done, 
n'en parlous plus." When not in an amiable mood, he 
showed them the door, saying, " Monsieur, si je suis aussi 
grand homme que vous le dites, je suis trop grand pour 
m'occuper de vos petites affaires. J'ai I'honneur de vous 
saluer." 

He was fond of his native town, one of whose streets bore 
or still bears his name, though, according to all authorities, 
it never smelt sweet by whatsoever appellation it went. But 
he objected to being lionized, so he never stayed with the 
prefect, the maire, or the general commanding the district, 
and simply took up his quarters at the hotel, insisting on be- 
ing treated like any othei visitor. The maire respected his 
wishes; the population did not, which was a sore point with 
the marshal. Nevertheless, when, in 1858, during their Ex- 
hibition, they wanted him to distribute the prizes, he con- 
sented to do so, on condition that his reception should be of 
the simplest. The Dyonnais promised, and to a certain ex- 
tent kept their word. Next morning the prefect, accompa- 
nied by the authorities, fetched him in his carriage. The 
ceremony was to take place in the park itself, and at the en- 
trance was posted General Picard, accompanied by his staff, 
and at the head of several battalions. The moment the mar- 



366 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

slial set foot to the ground, the general saluted, the drums 
rolled, and the bands played. The marshal felt wroth, and 
at the conclusion of the distribution sent for the general, 
whom, not to mince matters, he roundly bullied. 

General Picard did not interrupt him. " Have you fin- 
ished, monsieur le marechal ? " he asked at last. 

" Of course, I have finished." 

" Very well ; the next time you come out as a simple 
bourgeois, you had better leave the grand cordon of the 
Legion of Honour at home. If I had not saluted you as I 
did, I should have had the reprimand of the minister of war, 
and of the chancellor of the Legion of Honour. After all, I 
prefer yours." 

" But I am the minister for war." 

" I know nothing about that. I only saw an old gentle- 
man with the grand cordon. If you are the minister for war, 
perhaps you will be good enough to tell Marechal Vaihant, 
when you see him, that he must not tempt old soldiers like 
myself to forget their duty." 

" You are right, general. But what a hot fiery lot these 
Dyonnais are, aren't they ? " Picard was a native of Dyon 
also. 



THE WAR. 367 



CHAPTER XIX. 

The Franco-Gennan War— Friday, July 15, 1870, 6 p.m.— My friends "confi- 
dent of France beinij able to chastise the insolence of the Kins^ of Prussia " 
— I do not share their conliderice ; but do not expect a crushing defeat^ 
Napoleon III.'s presence aggravated the disasters ; his absence would not 
have averted them — He himself had no illusions about the etficiency of the 
army, did not suspect the rottenness of it — His previous endeavoui*s at re- 
organization — The real drift of his proposed inquiries — His plan meant also 
compulsory service for every one — W hy the legislature opposed it — The 
makeshift proposed by it — Napoleon weary, body and soul — His physical 
condition — A great consultation and the upshot of it — ^Dr. Ricord and what 
he told me — I am determined to see and hear, though not to speak — I sally 
forth — The streets on the evening of Friday, the 15th of July — The illuini- 
• nations — Patriotism or Chauvinism — The announcement of a bookseller— 
What Moltke thought of it — The opinion of a dramatist on the war — The 
people; no horse-play — No work done on Saturday and Sunday — Cabmen 
— "A man does not pay for his own funeral, monsieur" — The northern 
station on Sunday — The departing Germans — The Emperor's particular 
instructions with regaixl to them — Alfred de Musset's " Khin Allemand "— 
Prevost-Paradol and the news of his suicide — The probable cause of it— A 
chat with a superior officer— The Emperor's Sunday receptions at the Tui- 
leries — Promotions in the army, upon what basis — Good and bad officers — 
The officers' mess does not exist — Another general officer gives his opinion 
— Marshal Niel and Leboeuf— The plan of campaign suddenly altered — The 
reason — The Emperor leaves St. Cloud — His confidence shaken before then 
— Some telegrams from the commanders of divisions — Thiers is appealed 
to, to stem the tide of retrenchment • afterwards to take the portfolio of war 
— The Emperor's opinion pei-sistently disregarded at the Tuileries — Trochu 
— The dancing colonels at the Tuileries. 

After the lapso of thirteen years, it is difficult to put the 
exact hour and date to each exciting incident of a period 
which was ahsohitely phenomenal throughout. I kept no 
diary, only a few rough notes, because at that time I never 
thought of committing my recollections to paper, and have, 
therefore, to trust almost wholly to my memory ; neverthe- 
less I am positive as to main facts, whether witnessed by my- 
self or communicated to me by friends and acquaintances. 
I remember, for instance, that, immediately after the decla- 
ration of war, I was warned bv my friends not to go abroad 
more than I could help, to keep away as much as possible 
from crowds. " You are a foreigner," said one, " and that 



368 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

will be sufficient for any ragamuffin, who wants to do you a 
bad turn, to draw attention to you. By the time you have 
satisfactorily proved your nationality you will be beaten black 
and blue, if not worse." 

The advice was given on Friday, the loth of July, about 
six in the afternoon ; that is, a few hours after the news of 
the scenes in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate had 
spread, and when the centre of Paris was getting gradually 
congested with the inhabitants of the faubourgs. My friends 
were men of culture and education, and not at all likely to 
be carried away by the delirium which, on that same night 
and for the next week, converted Paris into one vast lunatic 
asylum, whose inmates had managed to throw oif the control 
of their keepers ; yet there was not a single civilian among 
them who had a doubt about the eventual victory of France, 
ah.out her ability "to chastise the arrogance of the King of 
Prussia," to put the matter in their own words. 

" To try to be wise after the event " is a thing I particu- 
larly detest, but I can honestly affirm that I did not share 
their confidence, although I did not suspect for a moment 
that the defeat would be so crushing as it was. I remem- 
bered many incidents that had happened during the previous 
four years of which they seemed conveniently oblivious ; I 
was also aware, perhaps, of certain matters of which they 
were either profoundly ignorant, or professed to be ; but, 
above all, I took to heart the advice, tendered in the shape 
of, " You are a foreigner ; " and though I feared no violence 
or even verbal recrimination on their part, I chose to hold 
my tongue. 

I hold no brief for the late Emperor, but I sincerely be- 
lieve that he was utterly averse to the war. I, moreover, think 
that if he had consented to remain in Paris or at St. Cloud, 
the disaster would have happened all the same. He had no 
illusions about the efficiency of his armies, though he may 
not have been cognizant of the thorough rottenness of the 
whole. But to have said so at any time, especially during 
the last four years, would have been simply to sign the death- 
warrant of his dynasty. He endeavoured to remedy the de- 
fects in a roundabout way as early as October, ^66, by appoint- 
ing a commission to draw up a plan for the reorganization of 
the army. Apparently, Napoleon wanted larger contingents; 
in reality, he hoped that the inquiry would lay bare such evi- 
dence of corruption as would justify him in dismissing several 



THE EMPEROR OPPOSED TO WAR. 339 

of the men surrounding liim from tlieir liigh commands. But 
both tliose who only saw the apparent drift as well as those 
who guessed at the real one were equally determined in their 
opposition. It was the majority in the Legislature which 
first uttered the cry, immediately taken up by the adversaries 
of the regime, "If this bill becomes law there will be an end 
of favourable numbers." In fact, the bill meant compulsory 
service for every one, and the consent of the deputies to it 
would at once have forfeited their position with their elect- 
ors, especially with the peasantry, to whom to apply the 
word " patriotism " at any time is tantamount to the vilest 
prostitution of it. 

Of the makeshift for that law I need say little or nothing. 
Without a single spy in France, without a single attache in 
the Rue de Lille, Bismarck was enabled by that only to de- 
termine beforehand the effects of one serious military defeat 
on the dynasty of the Emperor ; he was enabled to calculate 
the exact strength of the chain of defence which would be 
offered subsequently. The French army was like the Scotch 

lad's porridge, " sour, burnt, gritty, cold, and, it, there 

Avas not enough of it." It is not underrating Bismarck's 
genius to say that a man of far inferior abilities than he 
would have plainly seen the course to pursue. 

Was Napoleon III. steeped in such crass ignorance as not 
to have had an inkling of all this? Certainly not ; but he 
was weary, body and soul, and, but for his wife and son, he 
would, perhaps willingly, have abdicated. He had been suf- 
fering for years from one of the most excruciating diseases, 
and a fortnight before the declaration of war the symptoms 
liad become so alarming that a great consultation was held 
between MM. Nelaton, Ricord, Fauvel, G. See, and Corvisart. 
The result was the unanimous conclusion of those eminent 
medical men that an immediate operation was absolutely 
necessary. Curiously enough, however, the report embody- 
ing this decision was only signed by one, and not communi- 
cated to the Empress at all. It may be taken for granted 
that, had she known of her husband's condition, she would 
not have agitated in favour of the war, as she undoubtedly 
did. 

It was only after the Emperor's death at Chislehurst that 

the document in question was found, but I happened to know 

Br. Ricord intimately, and most of the facts, besides those 

stated above, were known to me on that memorable Friday, 

25 



370 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

the 15th of July, 1870. As I have said ah-eady, I thought it 
wiser to hold my tongue. 

But though determined not to speah — knowing that it 
would do no earthly good — I was equally determined to see 
and to hear ; so, at about eight, I sallied forth. The heat 
was positively stifling, and it was still daylight, but, in their 
eagerness to show their joy, the Parisians would not wait for 
darkness to set in, and, as I went along, I saw several matrons 
of the better classes, aided by their maids, make preparations 
on the balcony for illuminating the moment the last rays of 
the sun should set behind the horizon. I distinctly say ma- 
trons of the better classes, because my way lay through the 
Chaussee d'Antin, where the tenancy of an apartment on the 
first, second, or third floor implied a more than average in- 
come. I was, and am, av/are that neither refinement nor good 
sense should be measured by the money at one's command, 
but under similar circumstances it is impossible to apply any 
other valid test. In the streets there was one closely wedged- 
in, seething mass, and the noise was deafening ; nevertheless, 
at the sight of one of those matrons thus engaged there was 
a momentary lull, followed immediately by vociferous applause 
and the cry of " Les meres de la patrie." From a cursory 
glance upward, I came to the conclusion that the progeny of 
tliese ladies, if they were blessed with any, could as yet con- 
tribute but very little to the glory of the nation ; still, I re- 
flected, at the same time, that they had probably brothers and 
husbands who, within a few hours, might be called to the 
front, " nevermore to return ; " that, therefore, the outburst 
of patriotism could not be called an altogether cheap one. 
In fact, none but the thoroughly irreclaimable sceptic could 
fail to be struck with the genuine outburst of national resent- 
ment against a whole nation on the part of another nation, 
which, as I take it, means something different from unalloyed '^ 
patriotism. It was a mixture of hatred and chauvinism, rather 
than the latter and more elevated sentiment. The " sacred 
soil of France " — though why more sacred than any other 
soil, I have never been able to make out — was not threatened 
in this instance by Prussia ; carefully considered, it was not 
even a question of national honour offended for which Paris 
professed itself ready as one man to draw the sword, and yet 
the thousands in the street that night behaved as if each of 
them had a personal quarrel to settle, not with one or two 
Germans, but with every son and daughter of the Fatherland. < 



THE STREETS ON FRIDAY NIGHT, JULY 15. 37I 

It was, perhaps, a quarter after eight when I found myself 
in the Chaussee d'Antin, and the distance to the Boulevard 
des Italiens was certainly not more than two hundred and 
fifty yards ; nevertheless, it took me more than half an hour 
to get over it, for immediately on my emerging into the main 
thoroughfare I looked at a clock which pointed to nine. Two 
things stand out vividly in my memory : the first, the prepa- 
rations of several business houses to illuminate on a grand 
scale, there and then ; i.e. the putting up of the elaborate 
crystal devices used by them on the 15th of August, the Em- 
peror's fete-day. It was exactly a month before that date, 
and a neighbour of an enthusiastic tradesman remarked upon 
the fact. " I know," was the answer ; " I'll leave it there till 
the 1-ith of next month, and then I'll add two bigger ones to 
it." On the day proposed, not only were there none added, 
but the original one had also disappeared, for by that time 
the Second Empire was virtually in the throes of death. The 
second thing I remember was the enormous strip of calico 
outside a bookseller's shop, with the announcement, " Dic- 
tionnaire Fran9ais-Allemand a I'usage des Fran9ais a Berlin." 
In less than two months I read the following ; it was an ex- 
tract from the interview between Bismarck and Moltke on 
the one side and General de Wimpffen on the other, on the 
eve of the capitulation of Sedan : " You do not know the 
topography of the environs of Sedan," replied General von 
Moltke ; " and, seeing that we are on the subject, let me give 
you a small instance which thoroughly shows the presump- 
tion, the want of method, of your nation. At the beginning 
of the campaign, you provided your oflRcers with maps of 
Germany, when they utterly lacked the means of studying 
the geography of their own country, seeing that you had no 
maps of your own territory." I could not help thinking of 
the bookseller, and wondering how many dictionaries he sold 
during those first few days. 

I did not get very far that night, only as far as the Maison 
d'Or, where I was perforce obliged to stop and look on. I 
stood for nearly an hour and a half, for there was no possi- 
bility of getting a seat, and during that time I only heard one 
opinion adverse to the war. It was that of a justly celebrated 
dramatist, who is by no means hostile to either the Emperor 
or the Empire, albeit that he had declined several years ago 
to be presented to Napoleon when Princess Mathilde offered 
him to do so. He positively hates the Germans, but his hatred 



372 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

did not blind him to their great intellectual qualities and to 
their powers of organization. " It is all very fine to shout 
* A Berlin ! ' " he said ; *' and it is very probable that some of 
these bellowers (braillards) will get there, though not in the 
order of procession they expect ; they will be in front, and 
the Germans at their backs." He spoke very low, and begged 
me not to repeat what he had said. " If I am mistaken, I do 
not want to be twitted with having thrown cold water on the 
martial ardour of my countrymen ; if I am right, I will will- 
ingly forego the honour of having prophesied the humilia- 
tion of my countrymen." That is why I suppress his name 
here, but I have often thought of his words since ; and wlien 
people, Englishmen especially, have accused him of having 
contributed to the corruption of the Second Empire by his 
stage works, I have smiled to myself. With the exception of 
one, he has never written a play that did not teach a valuable 
moral lesson ; but he is an excellent husband, father, and son, 
though he is perhaps not over generous with his money. 

I am bound to say that, though the noise on the Boulevards 
was terrific, and the crowds the densest I have ever seen in 
Paris or anywhere, they refrained from that horse-play so ob- 
jectionable in England under similar circumstances. Of course 
there were exceptions ; such as, for instance, the demonstra- 
tion at the Prussian Embassy : but, in the main, the behav- 
iour was orderly throughout. I do not know what might 
have been the result of any foreigners — German or otherwise 
— showing themselves conspicuously, but they were either al- 
together absent, or else concealed their nationality as much 
as possible by keeping commendably silent. 

Nevertheless, the Parisian shopkeeper, who is the most 
arrant coward on the face of the earth where a crowd is con- 
cerned, put up his shutters during the whole of Saturday and 
Sunday, except those who professed for cater for the inner man. 
I doubt whether, on the first-named day, there was a single 
stroke of work done by the three or four hundred thousand 
of Parisian artisans. I exclude cabmen, railway porters, and 
the like. They had their hands full, because the exodus be- 
gan before the war news was four and twenty hours old. Our 
own countrymen seemed in the greatest hurry to put the 
Channel between themselves and France. If the enemy had 
been already at the gates of Paris their retreat could have 
been scarcely more sudden. The w^ords " bouches inutiles " 
had as j^et not been pronounced or invented officially ; but I 



"BOUCHES IN UTILES." 373 

have a notion that a cabman suggested them first, in a con- 
versation with a brother Jehu. " Voila des bouches utiles 
qui s'en vont, mon vieux," he said, while waiting on the Place 
Vendome to take passengers to the railway. Until then I had 
never heard the word used in that sense. 

Apropos of cabmen, I heard a story that day for the truth 
of which I will, however, not vouch. There was a cab-stand 
near the Prussian Embassy, and most of the drivers knew 
every one of the attaches, the latter being frequent customers. 
On the Saturday morning, a cab was called from the rank to 
take a young attache to the eastern railway station. He was 
going to join his regiment. On alighting from the cab, the 
attache was about to pay his fare ; the driver refused the 
money. " A man does not pay for his own funeral, monsieur ; 
and you may take it that I have performed that office for you. 
Adieu, monsieur." With that he drove off. True or not, the 
mere invention of the tale would prove that, at any rate, the 
lower middle classes were cocksure of the utter annihilation 
of the Germans. 

I happened to have occasion to go to the northern station 
on the Sunday, to see some one off by the mail. That large, 
cold, bare hall, which does duty as a waiting-room, was crowd- 
ed, and a number of young Gi-ermans were among the passen- 
gers ; respectable, stalwart fellows who, to judge by their dress, 
had occupied good commercial positions in the French capi- 
tal. Most of them w^ere accompanied by friends or relations. 
They seemed by no means elated at the prospect before them, 
and scarcely spoke to one another. As a matter of course, 
they were scattered all over the place, in groups of three and 
four. I noticed that there was an exceedingly strong con- 
tingent of sergents de ville, and several couples of officiers de 
paix — what in England we should call superintendents of po- 
lice. The latter had evidently received particular instruc- 
tions, for they had posted, as much as possible, a sergent de 
ville close to every group. ' At first I mistook the drift of the 
supervision, but it was soon explained to me when one of the 
officiers de paix came up to a group somewhat larger than the 
others. " Messieurs," he said very politely, " vous etes Alle- 
mands, et je vous prierai de vous mettre ensemble, afin de 
pouvoir vous proteger, s'il y a besoin." I heard afterwards 
that, amidst all his w^eighty occupations, the Emperor him- 
self had given orders to have the Germans especially protect- 
ed, as he feared some violence on the part of the Parisians. 



374 ^N E^^GLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

During the next week the excitement did not abate, but, 
save for some minor incidents, it was the same thing over and 
over again : impromptu processions along the main thorough- 
fares to the singing of the " Marseillaise " and the " Chant 
du Depart," until the crowds had got by heart Alfred de 
Musset's " Rhin Allemand," of which, until then, not one in 
a thousand had ever heard. 

Meanwhile the news had spread of the suicide of Prevost- 
Paradol, the newly appointed French ambassador at Wash- 
ington, and the republicans were trying to make capital out 
of it. According to them, it was political shame and re- 
morse at having deserted his colours, despair at the turn 
events were taking, that prompted the step. These false- 
hoods have been repeated until they became legends con- 
nected with the fall of the Second Empire. To the majority 
of Englishmen, Prevost-Paradol is not even a name ; talented 
as he was. Frenchmen would have scarcely known more about 
him if some politicians, for purposes of their own, had not 
chosen to convert him into a self -immolated martyr to the 
Imperialist cause — or, rather, to that part of the cause which 
aimed at the recovery of the left banks of the Rhine. I knew 
Prevost-Paradol, and he was only distinguished from hun- 
dreds of thousands of Frenchmen in that his " France Nou- 
velle " was a magnificent attempt to spur his countrymen's 
ambition in that direction ; but this very fact is an additional 
argument against the alleged cause of his self-destruction. 
He shot himself during the night of the 10th and 11th of 
July, wlien not the most pessimistically inclined could fore- 
see the certainty of a war, and, least of all, the disastrous re- 
sult of it to France. Those who would know the real cause 
of Prevost-Paradol's suicide had better read a short tale that 
appeared anonymously in the Revue des Deux Mondes of 
February, 1860. The hero of " Madame de Mar^ay " is none 
other than the brilliant journalist himself, and the germs of 
suicidal mania were so plainly discernible in him, as to make 
those who knew the writer wonder that he had not killed 
himself long before he did. 

I have already said that the excitement did not abate, but 
the more serious-minded began to look critical, and, among 
the latter, curiously enough, there were a good many superior 
officers in the army. They were too loyal to express openly 
their want of confidence in their leaders, but it was evident 
enough to the careful listener that that want of confidence 



THE EMPEROR AND HIS GENERALS. 375 

did exist. I had a conversation during that week with one 
of the former, whose name, for obvious reasons, I must sup- 
press ; and this is, as far as I can remember, what he said, 
knowing that he coukl trust me. " There is not a single 
properly drawn ordnance map of France at the War Otiice ; 
and if there were, there is not a single man in power there 
who would know how to use it. I doubt whether there is a 
settled plan of campaign ; they'll endeavour to conduct this 
war as they conducted the Crimean, Italian, and Mexican 
wars — that is, on the principle which stood them in such 
good stead in Algeria, though they ought to know by this 
time how very risky those experiments turned out, especially 
in '59 ; and I have no need to tell you that we are going to 
confront a different army from that of the Austrians or the 
Kussians, Todleben notwithstanding. The African school of 
warfare ought to be played out by now, but it is not. To a 
certain extent, the Emperor is to blame for this. You re- 
member what his uncle said : ' There is not a single general 
of whose draught I am not aware. Some will go up to their 
waists ; others up to their necks ; others, again, to over their 
heads ; but the latter number is infinitely small, I assure you.' 
The Emperor is not in the same position with regard to the 
capacity of his generals, let alone of his officers." 

" But he ought to be," I objected ; " he interviews a great 
many of them on Sunday mornings." I was alluding to the 
informal levee held at the Tuileries every week, to which the 
generals and the general officers by sea and by land were ad- 
mitted. 

" You are right — he ought to be," was the answer ; " and 
if a great deal of conscientious trouble on his part could have 
put him in possession of such knowledge, he would have had 
it by this time. Of course, you have never been present at 
such a reception ; for all civilians, with the exception of a 
few ministers, are rigorously excluded. I repeat, the inten- 
tion is a good one, but it is not carried out properly. The 
very fact that at the outset it met with the most strenuous 
opposition from nearly all the ministers and high dignitaries 
of the Imperial household ought to have shown his Majesty 
the necessity of interviewing these officers alone, without as 
much as a chambellan in waiting. As it is, do you know 
what happens ? I will tell you. The Emperor passes before 
these officers as they are standing around the room, stops be- 
fore nearly every one to ask a question, inviting him, at the 



376 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

same time, to lodge a protest if necessary against any stand- 
ing abuse or to suggest a measure of reform. But the cham- 
bellan is close at his heels ; the minister for war, the marshal 
commanding the Imperial Guard, the military governor of 
Paris, are standing but a few steps away. The officer to 
whom the question is addressed feels himself tongue-tied; he 
knows that all these can hear every word he says, and, rather 
than be marked by his superiors as a tiresome meddler, he 
prefers to hold his tongue altogether — that is, if he be com- 
piratively honest. Call it cowardice if you like, but most 
men will tell you that such cowardice exists in all adminis- 
trations whether civil or military. Consequently, the Em- 
peror, though he may know a good many officers by name 
and by sight, in reality knows nothing of their capacities. I 
may safely say that, for the last fifteen or sixteen years, there 
have not been a dozen important promotions, either in the 
army or the navy, justified by the ' record of service ' of the 
officer promoted. Divisions — nay, whole army corps — have 
been confided to men who, in the hour of need, will, no doubt, 
prove very dashing and very plucky, but who have no more 
notion of handling large masses of men than an ordinary 
drill-sergeant. To use a more striking metaphor — they have 
selected the most desperate punters at baccarat to work out 
complicated chess problems. What the result will be with 
such a champion as Von Moltke, Heaven only knows. There 
are men at the head of our cavalry forces who can scarcely 
hold themselves on horseback ; there are others commanding 
divisions and even corps-d'armee who know all about bridges, 
pontoons, artillery, and so forth, but who could no more exe- 
cute a regularly organized retreat or advance than a child. 
The theory is that their dash and courage, their reckless, 
happy-go-lucky, but frequently successful African system, 
will make up for their ignorance of tactics and strategy. 
Naturally this is an implied rather than an expressed opin- 
ion, for many of those favourites believe themselves to be the 
equals in these latter sciences of Jomini and Napoleon, per- 
haps of Moltke also. Do not misunderstand me ; there are a 
number of officers in the French army who have made a care- 
ful study of the science of war, alid who, in that respect, 
would favourably compare with an equal number of the best 
instructed German officers, but they have by this time re- 
signed themselves to keep in the background, because any 
attempt on their part to raise the standard of military knowl- 



A GLAXCE AT THE FRENCH ARxMY. 377 

edge has for years been systematically discountenanced by 
those nearest to the throne. On the other hand, the men 
thus kept at arm's length have not been altogether satisfied 
to suffer in silence. I do not mean to say that they have 
given vent to their grievances openly ; they have done worse, 
perhaps, from the point of view of maintaining the discipline 
of the army. They have adopted a semi-critical, semi-hostile 
attitude towards their superiors. The officers' mess, such 
as it exists in England, is virtually unknown on the Conti- 
nent, and least of all in France. The unmarried officer 
takes his daily meals at the table d'hote of an hotel, and he 
does talk ' shop ' now and then in the presence of civilians. 
The criticisms he utters do find their way to the barrack- 
room, so that by now the private has become sceptical with 
regard to the capabilities of the generals and marshals. The 
soldier who begins to question the fitness of his chiefs is 
like the priest who begins to question the infallibility of the 
pope ; he is a danger to the institution to which he be- 
longs." 

In reality, my informant told me little that was new, 
though he perhaps did not suspect that I was so well in- 
formed. I had heard most of all this, and a great deal be- 
sides, from a connection of mine by marriage, whose strictures 
in the same direction came with additional force, seeing that 
he was a frequent and welcome guest at the Tuileries. He 
was a general officer, but, with a frankness that bordered on 
the cynical, maintained that but for his capital voice and 
skill at leading " the cotillon " he would probably have never 
risen beyond the rank of captain ; " for there are a thousand 
captains that know a great deal more than I do, a couple of 
thousand that know as much as I do, and very few who 
know less, none of whom have ever been promoted, and never 
will be, unless they earn their promotion at tlie point of the 
sword." According to him, the "records of service" were 
not as much as looked into at the periods of general promo- 
tions. " A clever answer to one of the Emperor's questions, 
a handsome face and pleasing manners, are sufficient to estab- 
lish a reputation at the Chateau. The ministers for war take 
particular care not to rectify those impulsive judgments of 
the Emperor and Empress, because they rightly think that 
careful inquiries into the candidates' merits would hurt their 
own proteges, and those of their fellow-ministers. This 
happy-go-lucky system — for a system it has become — founded 



378 AN ENGLISHMAN IX PARIS. 

upon the most barefaced nepotism, is condoned, by those who 
ought to have opposed it with all their might and main at 
the very outset, on the theory that Frenchmen's courage is 
sure to make up in the end for all shortcomings, which theory 
in itself is a piece of impertinence, or at auy rate of overween- 
ing conceit, seeing that it implies the absence of such courage 
in the officers of other nations. But there is something else. 
All these favourites are jealous of one another, and, mark my 
words, this jealousy will in this instance lead to disastrous 
results, because the Emperor will find it as difficult to comply 
with as to refuse their individual extravagant demands. The 
time is gone by for radical reforms. ' You cannot swap 
horses while crossing a stream,' said Abraham Lincoln ; and 
we are crossing a dangerous stream. The Emperor has, be- 
sides, a horror of new faces around him, and to extirpate the 
evil radically he would have to make a clean sweep of his 
military household." 

I must preface the following notes by a personal remark. 
Eor private reasons, which I cannot and must not mention, I 
have decided not to put my name to these jottings, wliether 
they are published before or after my death. I am aware 
that by donig this I diminish their value ; because, although 
I never played a political or even a social part in France, I 
am sufficiently well known to inspire the reader with confi- 
dence. As it is, he must take it for granted that I was prob- 
ably the only foreigner whom Frenchmen had agreed not to 
consider an enemy in disguise. 

While my relative was giving me the above resume, I was 
already aware that there existed in the French War Office a 
scheme of mobilization and a plan of campaign elaborated 
by Marshal Niel, the immediate predecessor of Marshal Le- 
b'oeuf. I knew, moreover, that this plan provided for the 
formation of three armies, under the respective commands of 
Marshals MacMahon, Bazaine, and Canrobert, and that the 
disposition of these three armies had been the basis of nego- 
tiations for a Franco- Austrian alliance which had been started 
six weeks previous to the declaration of war by General Le- 
brun in Vienna. Up till the 22nd or 23rd of July the prepa- 
rations were carried out in accordance with that original pro- 
ject ; the respective staffs that had been appointed, the vari- 
ous regiments and brigades distributed long ago, were already 
hurrying to the front, when all of a sudden the whole of this 
plan was modified ; the three armies were to be fused into 



NAPOLEON'S MARSHALS. 379 

one, to be called " I'armee du Rliin," under the sole and ex- 
- elusive command of the Emperor. 

Whence this sudden change ? The historians, with their 
usual contempt for small causes, have endeavoured to explain 
it in various ways. According to some, the change was de- 
cided upon in order to afford the Emperor the opportunity 
of distinguishing himself ; the " armee du Rhin " was to re- 
vive the glories of the " grande armee ; " there was to be a 
second edition of the Napoleonic epic. After the first start- 
ling successes, the Emperor was to return to the capital, and 
Marshal Niel's plan was, if practicable, to be taken up once 
more, — that is, the French troops, having established a foot- 
hold in the enemy's country, were to be divided again under 
so many Klebers, Soults, and Xeys. 

According to others, the Emperor, who until then had 
been living in a fool's paradise with regard to the quantity, if 
not with regard to the quality, of the forces at his disposal, 
suddenly had his eyes opened to the real state of affairs. The 
six hundred and fifty thousand troops supposed to be at his 
disposal had their existence mainly on paper : the available 
reality did not amount to more than a third ; i.e. to about 
two hundred and fiftean thousand troops of all arms. 

The facts advanced by these historians are true, but they 
did not determine the change referred to — at any rate, not so 
far as the assumption of the supreme command by the Em.- 
peror himself was concerned. Anxious as the latter may have 
been, in the interest of his dynasty, to reap the glory of one 
or two successful battles fought under his immediate super- 
vision, he was fully aware of his unfitness for such a task, 
especially in his actual state of health. Louis-Xapoleon be- 
, lieved in his star, but he was not an idiot who counted upon 
luck to decide the fate of battles. If he had ever fostered 
such illusions, the campaign of 1859 must have given a rude 
shock to them, for there he was, more than once, within an 
ace of defeat ; and no one knew this better than he did. The 
fusing of the three armies into one was due, first, to the diffi- 
culty, if not impossibility, of constituting three armies with 
considerably less than three hundred thousand troops; 
secondly, to the inveterate jealousy of his marshals of one 
another. Napoleon feared, and justly, that if those three 
armies went forth under three separate commands, there 
would be a repetition of the quarrels that had occurred during 
the Austro-Franco war, when Niel accused Canrobert of not 



380 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

having properly siijiported him at the right time, and so 
forth. It will be remembered tliat the Emperor himself 
had to intervene to heal those quarrels. Under those cir- 
cumstances, the Emperor thought it better to risk it, and to 
take the whole responsibility upon himself. 

The Emperor left St. Cloud on the 28th of July. It is 
very certain that, even before his departure, his confidence in 
the late Marshal Niel as an organizer must have been con- 
siderably shaken, and that the words of Leboeuf, " "We are 
ready, more than ready," sounded already a hollow mockery 
to his ear. Here are some of the telegrams which, after the 
4th of September, were found among the papers at the Tui- 
leries. They were probably cojnes of the originals, though I 
am by no means certain that they w^ere forwarded to St. Cloud 
at the time of their reception. It would have been better, 
perhaps, if thev had been. 

" Metz, 20 July, 1870, 9.50 a.m. From Chief of Commis- 
sariat Department to General Blondeau, War Office, Paris. 
There is at Metz neither sugar, coffee, rice, brandy, nor salt. 
AVe have but little bacon and biscuit. Despatch, at least, a 
million rations to Thionville." 

" G-eneral Ducrot to War Office, Paris. Strasburg, 20 July, 
1870, 8.30 p.m. By to-morrow there will be scarcely fifty 
men left to guard Neuf-Brisach ; Fort-Mortier, Schlestadt, 
la Petite-Pierre, and Lichtenberg are equally deserted. It is 
the result of the orders we are carrying out. The Garde 
Mobile and local National Guards might easily be made avail- 
able for garrison duty, but I am reluctant to adopt such 
measures, seeing that your excellency has granted me no 
power to that effect. It appears certain that the Prussians 
are already masters of all the passes of the Black Forest." 

" From the General commanding the 2nd Armv Corps to 
War Office, Paris. Saint- Avoid, 21 July, 1870/8.55 a.m. 
The depot sends enormous parcels of maps, which are abso- 
lutely useless for the moment. We have not a single map of 
the French frontier. It would be better to send greater 
quantities of what would be more useful, and which are abso- 
lutely wanting at this moment." 

""From General Michael to War Office, Paris. Belfort, 
21 July, 1870, 7.30 a.m. Have arrived at Belfort; did not 
find my brigade, did not find a general of division. AVhat 
am I to do ? Do not know where are my regiments." 

" From General commanding 4th Army Corps to Major- 



SOME TELEGRAMS. 381 

General, Paris. Tliionville, 21 July, 9.12 a.m. The 4th 
Corps has as yet neither canteens, ambulances, nor baggage- 
waggons, either for the troops or the staff. There is an 
utter lack of everything." 

I need quote no further ; there were about two hundred 
missives in all, all dated within the week following the offi- 
cial declaration of war. It would be difficult to determine 
how many of these the Emperor was permitted to see, but 
there is no doubt that he had a pretty correct idea of the 
state of affairs, for here is a fact which I have not seen 
stated anywhere, but for the truth of which I can vouch. 
For full two years before the outbreak of hostilities, the 
Legislature seemed bent upon advocating all kinds of retrench- 
ment in the war budget. During the first six months of 
1870, the thing had almost become a mania with them, and 
the Emperor appealed to M. Thiers, through the interme- 
diary of Marshal Leboeuf himself, to help him stem the tide 
of this pseudo-economy. Thiers promised his support, and 
faitiifully kept his word ; but his aid came too late. The 
Emperor, however, felt grateful to him, and, only thirty-six 
hours before his departure for the seat of war, he offered him 
the portfolio of war, again through the intermediary of Mar- 
shal Leboeuf. The offer was respectfully declined, but what 
must have been the state of mind of Louis-Napoleon with 
regard to his officers, to prefer to them a civilian at such a 
critical moment ? I may state here that it was always the 
height of M. Thiers' ambition to be considered a great 
strategist and tactician, and also a military engineer. " Jo- 
mini was a civilian," he frequently exclaimed. Those who 
were competent to judge, have often declared that Thiers' 
pretensions in that direction were, to a certain extent, jus- 
tified by his talents. Curiously enough, M. de Ereycinet is 
affected by a similar mania. 

Here is a certain correlative to the above-mentioned fact. 
When, a few months after the Commnne, things were get- 
ting ship-shape in Paris, a large bundle of printed matter 
Avas unearthed in the erstwhile Imperial (then ^National) 
Printing Works. It contained, amongst others, a circular 
drawn up by the Emperor himself, entitled " A Bad Piece 
of Economy;" it was addressed to the deputies, and dated 
May, 1870 ; it showed the presumptive strength of the army 
of the Xorth-German Confederation as compared with that 
of Erance, and wound up with the following sentence : " If 



382 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

we compare the military condition of North-Germany with 
ours, we shall be able to judi^e how far those who would still 
further reduce our national forces are sufficiently enlightened 
as to our real interests." 

It has always been a mystery to me, and to those who 
were aware of its existence, why tliis circular was not dis- 
tributed at the proper time ; though, by the light of subse- 
quent events, one fails to see what good it could have done 
then. Were these events foreseen at the Tuileries as early 
as May ? I think not. The majority of the Emperor's en- 
tourage were confident that war with Germany was only a 
matter of time ; very few considered it to be so imminent. 
One cannot :for a moment imagine that the suppression of 
this circular was due to accidental or premeditated neglect ; 
for the sovereign, though ailing and low-spirited, was still 
too mindful of his prerogatives not to have visited such neg- 
lect of his wishes, whether intsntional or not, with severe 
displeasure. Nor can one for a moment admit that the Em- 
peror was hoodwinked into the belief that the circular had 
been distributed. His so-called advisers probably prevailed 
upon him to forego the distribution of the document, lest it 
should open the eyes of the nation to the inferiority of 
France's armaments. The only man who had dared to point 
out that inferiority, three years previously, was General 
Trochu, and his book, " I'Armee FranQaise," had the effect 
of ostracizing him from the Tuileries. The smart and swag- 
gering colonels who surrounded the Empress did not scruple 
to spread the most ridiculous slanders with regard to its au- 
thor ; but the Emperor, though aware that Trochu was sys- 
tematically opposed to his dynasty, also knew that he was an 
able, perhaps the ablest soldier in the country. The subse- 
quent failure of Trochu does not invalidate that judgment. 
*' I know what Trochu could and would do if he were un- 
hampered ; but I need not concern myself with that, seeing 
that he will be hampered," said Von Moltke at the beginning 
of the siege. Colonel Stoffel, the French military attache 
at Berlin, was severely reprimanded by Marshal Niel and by 
Leboeuf afterwards for his constant endeavours to acquaint 
the Emperor with the magnificent state of efficiency of the 
Prussian army and its auxiliaries. Ostensibly, it was because 
he had been guilty of a breach of diplomatic and military 
etiquette ; in reality, because the minister for war and his 
"festive" coadjutors objected to being constantly harassed 



A WOULD-BE MxVRlA-THERESA. 383 

in their pleasures by the sovereign's suspicions of their men- 
tal nakedness. " Nous I'avons eu, votre Rhin allemand. . . . 
Ou le pere a passe, passera bien I'onfant," was their credo ; 
and they continued to dance, and to flirt, and. to intrigue for 
places, which, in their hands, became fat sinecures. They 
would have laughed to scorn the dictum of the first Xa230- 
leon, that " there are no bad regiments, only bad colonels ; " 
in their opinion, there were no bad colonels, except those 
perhaps who did not constantly jingle their spurs on the 
carpeted floors of the Empress's boudoir, and the parqueted 
arena of the Empress's ball-room. The Emperor was too 
much of a dreamer and a philosopher for them ; he could 
not emancipate himself from his German education. The 
best thing to do was to let him write and print whatever he 
liked, and then prevail upon him at the last moment not to 
publish, lest it might offend national vanity. Contemptuous 
as they were of the German spirit of plodding, they had, 
nevertheless, taken a leaf from an eminent German's book. 
" Let them say and write what they like, as long as they let 
me do what I like," exclaimed Frederick the Great, on one 
occasion. They slightly reversed the sentence. " Let the 
Emperor say and write what he likes, as long as he lets us do 
what we like ; and one tbing Ave will take care to do, namely, 
not to let him publish his writings." They had forgotten, if 
ever they knew them — for their ignorance was as startling as 
their conceit — the magnificent lines of the founder of the 
dynasty which they had systematically undermined for A^ears 
by their dissipation, frivolity, and corruption : " The general 
is the head, the all in all of the army. It was not the Roman 
army that conquered Gaul, but Caesar ; it was not the Car- 
thaginian army that made the republican army tremble at 
the very gates of Rome, but Hannibal ; it was not the Mace- 
donian army that penetrated to the Indus, but Alexander ; 
it was not the French army which carried the war as far as 
the Weser and the Inn, but Turenne ; it was not the Prus- 
sian army which defended, during seven years, Prussia against 
the three greatest powers in Europe, but Frederick the 
Great." 

And she who aspired to play the role of a Maria-Theresa, 
when she was not even a Marie-Antoinette, and far more 
harmful than even a Marie-Louise, applauded the vapourings 
of those misguided men. " Le courage fait tout," had been 
the motto for nearly a score of years at the Tuileries. It did 



384 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

a good deal in the comedies a la Marivaux, in the Boccacian 
charades that had been enacted there during that time ; she 
had yet to learn that it would avail little or nothing in the 
Homeric struggle which was impending. 



THE WAR. 385 



CHAPTER XX. 

The war — Reaction before the Emperor's departure — The moral effects of the 
publication of the draft treaty — "Bismarck has done the Emperor" — The 
Parisians did not like the Empress — ^The latter always anxious to assume 
the regency — A. retrospect — Crimean war — The Empress and Queen Vic- 
toria— Solferino — The regency of '65 — Bismarck's millinery bills — Loi'd 
Lyons — Bismarck and the Due de Gramont — Lord Lyons does not foresee 
war — The republicans and the war — The Empress— Two ministerial coun- 
cils and their consequences — Mr. Frescott-Hewett sent for — Joseph FeiTari, 
the Italian philosopher — The Empress — The ferment in Paris — " Too much 
prologue to ' The Taming of the German Shrew ' " — The tirst engagement 
— The "Marseillaise" — An infant performer — The "Marseillaise" at the 
Comedie-Frangaise — The " Marseillaise" by command of the Emperor — A 

Patriotic ballet — The courtesy of the French at Fontenoy — The Cafe de la 
'aix — General Beaufort cl'Hautpoul and Moltke — Newspaper correspond- 
ents — Edraond About tells a story about one of his colleagues — News sup- 
plied by the Government — What it amounted to — The information it gave 
to the eiiemy — Bazaine, " the glorious" one — Palikao — The fall of the Em- 
pire does not date from Sedan, but from Wa-rth and Speicheren — Those 
who dealt it the heaviest blow — The Empress, the Empress, and no one but 
the Empress, 

Even before the Emperor started for the seat of war it 
was very evident, to those who kept their eyes open, that a 
reaction had set in among the better classes. They were no 
longer confident about France's ability to chastise the arro- 
gance of the King of Prussia. The publication of the fa- 
mous " draft treaty " had convinced them " que Bismarck 
avait roule I'empereur," — auglice, " that the Emperor had 
been bone;" and, notwithstanding their repeated assertions 
of being able to dispense with the moral support of Europe, 
they felt not altogether resigned about the animosity which 
the revelation of that document had provoked. Honestly 
speaking, I do not think that they regretted the duplicity of 
Lou is- Napoleon in having tried to steal a march upon the 
co-signatories of the treaty guaranteeing the protection of 
Belgium ; but it wounded their pride that he should have 
been found out to no purpose. The word " imbecile " began 
to circulate freely ; and when it became known that he had 
conferred the regency upon the Empress, the expression of 
2G 



386 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

contempt and disapproval became stronger still. In spite of 
everything that has been said to the contrary, the Parisians 
did not like the Empress. I have already noted elsewhere 
that those frankly hostile to her did not scruple to a2)ply the 
word " I'Espagnole " in a doi:)reciating sense ; those whose 
animosity did not go so far merely considered her " nne fem- 
me a la mode," and by no means fitted to take the reins of 
government, especially under circumstances so grave as the 
present ones. On the other hand, the Empress always showed 
herself exceedingly anxious to exercise the functions of re- 
gent. The flatterers and courtiers around her had imbued 
her with the idea that she was a kind of Elizabeth and a 
Catherine in one, and the clerical element in her entourage 
was not the least blamable in that respect. 

During the Crimean war, Lord Clarendon had already 
been compelled to combat the project, though he could not 
do so openly. Napoleon III. had several times expressed his 
intention of taking the command of the army. His minis- 
ters, and especially MM. Troplong and Baroche, begged of 
him not to do so. Even Queen Victoria, to whom the idea 
was broached while on her visit to Paris, threw cold water 
upon it as far as was possible. But the Empress encouraged it 
to her utmost. " I fail to see," she said to our sovereign, " that 
he would be expose d to greater dangers there than elsewhere." 
It was the prospect of the regency, not of the glory that 
might possibly accrue to her consort, that appealed to the 
Empress ; for in reality she had not the least sympathy with 
the object of that war, any more than with that of 1859. 
Russia was ostensibly fighting for the custody of the Holy 
Sepulchre ; and the defeat of Austria, she had been told by 
the priests, would entail the ruin of the temporal power of 
the pope. And Empress Eugenie never attained to anything 
more than parrot kno^\*ledge in the way of politics. 

However, in 1859 she had her wish, and, before the open- 
ing of the campaign, she declared to the Corps Legislatif 
that " she had perfect faith in the moderation of the Em- 
peror when the right moment for peace should have arrived." 
Her ladies-in-waiting and the male butterflies around her 
openly discounted the political effects of every engagement 
on the field of battle. The Emperor, according to them, 
would make peace with Austria with very few sacrifices on 
the latter's part, for it was a Conservative and Catholic power, 
which could not be humiliated to the bitter end, while Italy 



HENPECKED SOVEREIGNS. 357 

was, after all, but a hotbed of conspiracy, revolutionary, anti- 
Catholic, and so forth. 

And I know, for a positive fact, that the Emperor was, 
as it were, compelled to suspend operations after Solferino' 
because the Minister for War had ceased to send troops and 
ammunitions " by order of tlie regent," The Minister for 
Foreign Aifairs endeavoured by all means in his power to 
alarm his sovereign. 

Nevertheless, in 18G5, when he went to Algeria to seek 
some relief from his acute physical sufferings. Napoleon III. 
was badgered^ into confiding the regency once more to his 
wife. There is no other word, because there was no necessity 
for such a measure, seeing that he did not leave French terri- 
tory. We have an inveterate habit of laughing at the " hen- 
pecked hnsband," and no essayist has been bold enough as 
yet to devote a chapter to him from a purely historical point 
of view. The materials are not only at hand in France, but 
in England, Germany, and Russia also ; above all, in the lat- 
ter country. He, the essayist, might safely leave Catherine 
de Medici out of the question. He need not go back as far. 
He might begin witli Marie de Medici and her daughter, 
Hem^etta- Maria. Sometimes the "henpecking" turns out 
to be for the world's benefit, as when Sophie-Dorotliea wor- 
ries her spouse to let her first bov wear a heavy christening 
dress and crown, which eventually kill the infant, who makes 
room for Frederick the Great. Bat one could have very well 
spared the servant-wench who henpecked Peter the Great, 
and Scarron's widow who henpecked Louis XIV., and Marie- 
Antoinette and the rest. 

The regency of '65, though perhaps not disastrous in it- 
self, was fraught with the most disastrous consequences for 
the future. It gave the Empress the political imnortance 
which she had been coveting for years ; henceforth she made 
it a habit to be present at the councils of ministers, who in 
their tnrn informed her personallv of events which ought to 
have remained strictly between them and the chief of the 
State. This went on until M. Emile Ollivier came into 
power, January 2, 1870. The Italian and Austrian ambas- 
sadors, however, continued to flatter her vanity by constantly 
appealing to her ; the part they played on the 4th of Septem"- 
ber shows plainly enough how they profited in the interest of 
their governments by these seemingly diplomatic indiscre- 
tions on their own part. 



338 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

As for Bismarck, as some one who was very much behind 
the political scenes in Berlin once said, " His policy consist- 
ed in paying milliners' and dressmakers' bills in Paris for 
ladies to whos3 personal adornment and appearance he was 
profoundly indifferent." I am bound to say that Lord Lyons 
courteously but steadfastly refused to be drawn out " diplo- 
matically " by the Empress. While paying due homage to 
the woman and to the sovereign, he tacitly declined to con- 
sider her a pawn in the political game, and, though always 
extremely guarded in his language, could scarcely refrain 
from showing his contempt for those who did. I do not 
know whether Lord Lyons will leave behind any " memoirs ; " 
if he do, we shall probably get not only nothing but the 
truth, but the whole truth, with regard to the share of the 
Empress in determining the war ; and we shall find that that 
war was not decided upon between the Imperial couple be- 
tween the 14th and 15th of July, '70, but between the 5th 
and 6th of July. Meanwhile, without presuming to antici- 
pate such revelations on the part of our ambassador, I may 
note here my own recollections on the subject. 

On Tuesday, the 5th of July, about 2.30 p. m., I was walk- 
ing along the Faubourg Saint-Honore, when, just in front 
of the Embassy, I was brought to a standstill by Lord Lyons' 
carriage turning into the courtyard from tlie street. His 
lordship was inside. We were on very good terms, I may say 
on very friendly terms, and he beckoned me to come in. I 
was at the short flight of steps leading to the hall almost as 
soon as the carriage, and we went inside together. I do not 
suppose I was in his private room for more than ten min- 
utes, but I brought away the impression that, although the 
Due de Gramont and M. Emile Ollivier might think it ne- 
cessary to adopt a bellicose tone in face of the Hohenzollern 
candidature, there was little or no fear of war, because the 
Emperor was decidedly inclined to peace. I remember this 
the more distinctly, seeing that Lord Lyons told me that he 
had just returned from an interview with the Minister for 
Foreign Affairs. I am not certain of the exact words used 
by his lordship, but positive as to the drift of one of his re- 
marks ; namely, that the Duo de Gramont was the last per- 
son who ought to conduct the negotiations. *' There is too 
much personal animosity between him and Bismarck, owing 
mainly to the latter having laughed his pretensions to scorn 
as a diplomatist while the duke was at Vienna." I am cer- 



A TALK WITH LORD LYONS. 389 

tain the words were to that effect. Then he added, " I can 
understand though I fail to approve De Gramont's personal 
irritation, but cannot account for Ollivier's, and he seems as 
pugnacious as the other. Nevertheless, I repeat, the whole 
of this will blow over : William is too wise a man to go to 
war on such a pretext, and the Emperor is too ill not to want 
peace. I wish the Empress would leave him alone. I am 
going to Ollivier's to-night, and I'll know more about it by 
to-morrow morning." 

It is very evident from this that the historians were sub- 
sequently wrongly informed as to M. Emile Ollivier's attitude 
at that moment, which they have described as exactly the re- 
verse from what Lord Lyons found it. I knew little or noth- 
ing of ^L Ollivier, still he did not give me the impression of 
being likely to adopt a hectoring tone just in order to please 
the gallery, the gallery being in this instance the clientele of 
the opposition, whom the Emperor feared more than any one 
else. From all I have been able to gather since, Louis-Na- 
poleon seemed racked with anxiety, but, as one of my inform- 
ants, who was scarcely away from his side at the time, said 
afterwards, he was not pondering over the consequences of 
war which he fancied he was able to prevent, he was ponder- 
ing the consequences of peace. Translated into plain lan- 
guage, it meant that the republican minority, with its recent 
accession of representatives in the chambers and its still more 
unscrupulous adherents outside, were striving with might and 
main, not to goad the Emperor into a war, but to make him 
keep a peace which, if they had had the chance, they would 
have denounced as humiliating to France. 

Unfortunately for France, they found an unexpected ally 
in the Empress. The latter urged on the war with Prussia, 
in order to secure to her son the imperial crown which was 
shaking on the head of her husband ; the former were play- 
ing the game known colloquially as " Heads, I win ; tails, you 
lose." Peace preserved by means of diplomatic negotiations 
would give them the opportunity of holding up the Empire 
to scorn as being to weak to safeguard the national honour ; 
war would give them the opportunity of airing their plati- 
tudes about the iniquity of standing armies and the sacrifice 
of human life, etc. I go further still, and unhesitatingly af- 
firm that, if any party was aware of the corruption in the 
army, it was the republican one. The plebiscite of May, with 
its thousands of votes adverse to the Imperial regime — among 



390 ^N ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

which votes there were those of a great many officers — had not 
only given them a chance of counting their numbers, but of 
obtaining information, not available to their adversaries in 
power. This is tantamount to an indictment of having de- 
liberately contributed to the temporary ruin of their country 
for political purposes, and such I intend it to be. I am not 
speaking without good grounds. 

On the day I met Lord Lyons, two ministerial councils 
were held at Saint- Cloud, both presided over by the Emperor. 
Between the first and the second, the peaceful sentiments of 
the chief of the State underwent no change. So little did 
the Emperor foresee or desire war, that on the evening of 
that same day, while the second council of ministers was 
being held, he sent one of his aides-de-camp to my house for 
the exact address of Mr. Prescott-Hewett, the eminent Eng- 
lish surgeon. I was not at home, and on my return, an hour 
later, sent the address by telegraph to Saint-Cloud. I have 
since learnt that, on the same night, a telegram was despatched 
to London, inquiring of Mr. Hewett when it would be con- 
venient for him to hold a consultation in Paris. An appoint- 
ment was made, but Mr. Hewett eventually went in August, 
to the seat of war, to see his illustrious patient. I believe, 
but am not certain, that he saw him at Chalons. 

On the Gth of July, there was a third council of ministers 
at Saint- Cloud, at ten o'clock in the morning, in order to 
draw up the answer to M. Cochery's interpellation on the 
Hohenzollern candidature. The latter was supposed to have 
been inspired by M. Thiers, but I will only state what I know 
positively with regard to the Emperor. At a little after two 
that afternoon, I happened to be at the Cafe de la Paix, when 
my old friend, Joseph Ferrari, came up to me.* He was a 
great friend of Adolphe and Elysee, the brothers of Emile 
Ollivier. He looked positively crestfallen, and, knowing him 
to be a sincere advocate of peace, I had no need to ask him 
for the nature of the news he brought. I could see at a 
glance that it was bad. He, however, left me no time to put 
a question. 

" It's all over," he said at once, " and, unless a miracle 
happens, we'll have war in less than a fortnight." He im- 

* Joseph Ferrari was an Italian by birth, but spent a srreat part of his time 
in France. He is best known by his " Philosophes Sahvries," and died in Eome, 
1876.— Editor. 



THE EMPRESS STILL. 391 

mediately went on. " Wait for another hour, and then you'll 
see the elfect of De Gramont's answer to Cochery's interpel- 
lation in the Chamber, l^ot only the Prussians, but the 
smallest nation in Europe would not stand it." 

"But," I remarked, "about this time yesterday I was 
positively assured, and on the best authority, that the Em- 
peror was absolutely opposed to any but a pacific remon- 
strance." 

" Your informant was perfectly correct," was the answer ; 
" and as late as ten o'clock last night, at the termination of 
the second council of ministers, his sentiments underwent no 
change. Immediately after that, the Empress had a conver- 
sation with the Emperor, which I know for certain lasted till 
one o'clock in the morning. The result of this conversation 
is the answer, the text of which you will see directly, and 
which is tantamount to a challenge to Prussia. Mark my 
words, the Empress will not cease from troubling until she 
has driven France into a war with the only great Protestant 
power on the Continent. That power defeated, she will 
endeavour to destroy the rising unity of Italy. She little 
knows that Victor-Emanuel will not wait until then, and 
that, at the first success of the French on the Rhine, he will 
cross the Alps at a sign of Prussia ; that at the first success 
of Prussia, the Italian troops will start on their march to 
Home. Nay, I repeat, it is the Empress who will prove the 
ruin of France." 

That playful cry of the Empress, which she was so fond of 
uttering in the beginning of her married life, " As for my- 
self, I am a Legitimist," without understanding, or endeavour- 
ing to understand its import, had gradually grafted itself on 
her mind, although it had ceased to be on her lips. Impa- 
tient of contradiction, self-willed and tyrannical, both by 
nature and training, her sudden and marvellous elevation to 
one of the proudest positions in Europe could not fail to 
strengthen those defects of character. Superstitious, like 
most Spaniards, she was firmly convinced that the gipsy who 
foretold her future greatness was a Divine messenger, and 
from that to the conviction that she occupied the throne by 
a right as Divine as that claimed by the Bourbons there was 
but one short step. A corollary to Divine right meant, to 
her, personal and irresponsible government. That was her 
idea of legitimism. Though by no means endowed with high 
intellectual gifts, she perceived well enough, in the beginning, 



392 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

that the Second Empire was not a very stable edifice, either 
with regard to its foundations or superstructure, aud, until 
England propped it up by an alliance, and a State visit from 
our sovereign, she kept commendably coy. But from that 
moment she aspired to be something more than the arbiter 
of fashion. As I have already said, she failed in prevailing 
upon the Emperor to go to the Crimea. In '59 she was more 
successful, in '65 she was more successful still. In the former 
year, she laid the foundation of what was called the Emj^ress's 
party; in the latter, the scaffolding was removed from the 
structure, henceforth the work was done inside. She, no 
more than her surroundings, had the remotest idea that 
France was gradually undergoing a political change, that she 
was recovering her constitutional rights. Her party was like 
the hare in the fable that used the wrong end of the opera- 
glass, and lived in a fool's paradise with regard to the distance 
that divided them from the sportsman, until he vv^as fairly 
upon them, in the shape of the liberal ministry of the 2nd 
of January, 1870. 

M. Ernile Ollivier, to his credit be it said, refused to be 
guided by his predecessors. He studiously avoided informing 
the Empress of the affairs of State, let alone discussing them 
with her. Apart from the small fry of the Imperial part}^ 
he made two jDowerful enemies — the Empress herself, and 
Eouher, who saw in this refusal to follow precedent an im- 
plied censure upon himself. Houher, I repeat once more, 
was honest to the backbone, but fond of personal power. 
The Empire to him meant nothing but the Emperor, the 
Empress, and the heir to the throne ; just as Germany meant 
nothing to Bismarck but the Hohenzollern dynasty. He 
w^as one of the first to proclaim, loudly and openly, that the 
plebiscite of the 8th of May meant an overwhelming mani- 
festation, not in favour of the liberal Empire, but in favour 
of the Emperor; and when the latter, to do him justice, 
declined to look at it in that light, he deserted him for the 
side of his wife. It is an open secret tliat the first use the 
Empress meant to make of her power as regent, after the 
first signal victory of French arms, was to sweep away the 
cabinet of the 2nd of January. The Imperial decree con- 
ferring the regency upon her, "during the absence of the 
Emperor at the head of his army," and dated the 22nd of 
July, invested her with very limited power. 

Meanwhile, pending the departure of the Emperor, Paris 



SPECTACULAR PROLOGUES. 393 

was in a ferment, but, to the careful observer, it was no 
longer the unalloyed enthusiasm of the first few da3'S. There 
were just as many people in the streets ; the shouts of " A 
Berlin ! " though, perhaps, not so sustained, were just as loud 
every now and then ; the troops leaving for the front received 
tremendous ovations, and more substantial proofs of the peo- 
ple's goodwill ; the man who dared to pronounce the word 
" peace " ran a great risk of being rent to pieces by the 
crowds — a thing which almost happened one night in front 
of the Cafe de Sladrid, on the Boulevard Montmartre : still, 
the enthusiasm was not the same. " There seems to be a 
great deal of prologue to 'The Taming of that German 
Shrew,'" said a French friend, who was pretty familiar with 
Shakespeare ; and he was not far wrong, for the Christopher 
Sly abounded. The bivouacs of the troops about to take 
their departure reminded one somewhat more forcibly of 
operatic scenes and equestrian dramas of the circus t3^pe than 
of the preparations for the stern necessities of war — with this 
difference, that the contents of the goblet were real, and 
the viands not made of cardboard. " They are like badly 
made cannons, these soldiers," said some one else : " they are 
crammed up to the muzzle, and they do not go off." In 
short, the more sensible of the Paris jDopulation began to 
conclude that a little less intoning of patriotic strophes and 
a good deal more of juxtaposition with the German troops 
was becoming adrisable. The reports of the few preliminary 
skirmishes that had taken place were no doubt favourable to 
the French ; at the same time, there was no denying the 
fact that they had taken place on French and not on Ger- 
man territory, which was not quite in accordance with the 
spirit of the oft-repeated cry of "A Berlin ! " In accordance 
with the programme of which that cry was the initial quota- 
tion, the French ought, by this time, to have been already 
half on their way to the Prussian capital. That is what sen- 
sible, nay, clever people expressed openly. Nevertheless, the 
^v continued, nor was there any escape from the "Marseil- 
laise," either by day or night. Every now and then a more 
than usually dense group might be seen at a street corner. 
The centre of the group was composed of a woman, with a 
baby in her arms; the little one could scarcely speak, but its 
tiny voice reproduced more or less accurately the air of the 
" Marseillaise : " a deep silence prevailed during the perform- 
ance in order to give the infant a fair chance ; deafening ap- 



394 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

plause greeted the termination of the solo, and a shower of 
coppers fell into the real or pseud o mother's lap. On the 
18th of July, the day of the official declaration of war in 
Paris, the Comedie-Fran9aise performed " Le Lion Amou- 
reux" of Ponsard.* At the end of the second act, the public 
clamoured for the " Marseillaise." There was not a single 
member of the company capable of complying with the re- 
quest, " so the stage manager for the week " had to come 
forward and ask for a two-days' adjournment, during which 
some one might study it. Of course, the honour of sing- 
ing the revolutionary hymn was to devolve upon a woman, 
according to the precedent established in '48, when Rachel 
had intoned it. From what I learnt a few days afterwards, 
the candidates for the distinguished task were not many, in 
spite of the tacit consent of the Government. The ladies of 
the company, most of whom, like their fellow-actors, had 
been always very cordially treated by the Emperor on the 
occasion of their professional visits to Saint-Cloud, Com- 
piegne, and Fontainebleau, instinctively guessed the pain the 
concession must have caused the chief of the State, and un- 
der some pretext declined. Mdlle. Agar accepted, and sang 
the " Marseillaise," in all forty-four times, from the 20th of 
July to the 17th of September, the day of the final invest- 
ment of the capital by the German armies. 

It must not be supposed, though, that the Government 
had waited until the day of the official declaration of war to 
sanction the performance of the " Marseillaise '' in places of 
public resort. I remember crossing the Gardens of the Tui- 
leries in the afternoon of Sunday, the 17th of July. One of 
the military bands was performing a selection of music. The 
custom of doing so during the summer months has prevailed 
for many years, both in the capital and in the principal gar- 
rison towns of the provinces. All at once they struck up the 
" Marseillaise." I looked with surprise at my companion, a 
member of the Emperor's household. He caught the drift 
of my look. 

" It is by the Emperor's express command," he said. " It 
is the national war-song. In fact, it is that much more than 
a revolutionary hymn." 

" But war has not been declared," I objected. 

* I believe there exists an English version of the play, entitled " A Son of 
the Soil." I am not certain of the title. — Editor. 



THE MARSEILLAISE. 395 

" It will be to-morrow," was the answer. 

The public, which in this instance was mainly composed 
of the better classes, apparently refused to consider the " Mar- 
seillaise " a national war-song, and applause at its termination 
was but very lukewarm. 

I have already spoken of the scene I witnessed in connec- 
tion with the departure of the Germans on that same Sunday 
early in the morning, and have also noted the demonstration 
in front of the German Embassy on the previous Friday night. 
I will not be equally positive Avith regard to the exact dates 
of the succeeding exhibitions of bad taste on the part of the 
Parisians, but I remember a very striking one which hap- 
pened between the official declaration of Avar and the end of 
July. It was brought under my notice, not by a foreigner, 
but by a Frenchman, who Avas absolutely disgusted Avith it. 
We were sitting one cA^ening outside the Cafe de la Paix, 
Avhich, being the resort of some noted Imperialists, I had 
begun to visit more frequently than I had done hitherto. 
There Avas a terrible din on the Boulevards : the evening 
papers had just published a \^ery circumstantial account of 
that insignificant skirmish which cost Lieutenant WinsloAv 
his life, and in Avhich the French had taken a couple of 
prisoners. "They" (the prisoners), suggested an able edi- 
tor, " ought to be brought to Paris and publicly exhibited 
as an example." " And, AAdiat is more," said my friend Avho 
had read the paragraph to me, "he means what he says. 
These are the descendants of a nation Avho prides herself 
on having said at Fontenoy, ' Messieurs, les Anglais tirez les 
premiers,' Avhich, by-the-by, they did not say.* If you care 
to come Avith me, I'll shoAv you Avhat Avould be the probable 



* It was, in fact, an Encclisli officer who shouted, " Messieurs des gardes 
frangaises, tirez ; " to which the French replied, " Messieurs, nous ne tirons 
jamai^les premiers; tirez vous memes. ' But it was not politeness that dic- 
tated *ie reply ; it was the expression of the acknowledared and constantly in- 
culcated doctrine that all infantry troops which fired the first were indubitably 
beaten. AVe find the doctrine clearly stated in the infantry instructions of 
1672, and subsequently in the following order of Louis XIV. to his troojis : 
" The soldier shall be taught not to fire "the first, and to stand the fire of the 
enemy, seeing that an enemy who has fired is assuredly beaten when his ad- 
vei-sary has his powder left." At the battle of Dettingen, consequently, two 
years before Fontenoy, the theory had been carried heyond the absurd "by ex- 
pi-essly forbidding the Gardes to fire, though they were raked down by the 
enemy's bullets. Maurice de Saxe makes it a point to praise the wisdom of a 
colonel who, in order to prevent his troops from firing, constantly made them 
shoulder their muskets. — Editor, 



396 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

fate of sucli prisoners if the writer of that paragraph had his 
will." 

So said ; so done. In about a quarter of an hour we were 
seated at the Cafe de I'Horloge, in the Champs Elysees, and 
my friend was holding out five francs fifty centimes in pay- 
ment for two small glasses of so-called " Fine Champagne," 
j)lus the waiter's tip. The admission was gratis; and the 
difl'erence between those who went in and those who remained 
outside was that the latter could hear the whole of the per- 
formance without seeing it, and without disbursing a farthing ; 
while the former could see the whole of the performance 
without hearing a note, for the din there was also infernal. 
Shortly after our arrival, the band struck up the inevitable 
" Marseillaise," but the audience neither, listened nor ap- 
plauded. 

This was, after all, but the overture to the entertainment 
to which my friend had invited me, and which consisted of a 
spectacular pantomime representing an engagement between 
a regiment or a battalion of Zouaves and Germans. As a 
matter of course, the latter had the worst of it ; and, at the 
termination, a couple of them were brought in and compelled 
to sue for mercy on their knees. I am bound to say that the 
thing hung fire altogether, and that, but for the remarkable 
selection of handsome legs of the Zouaves, not even the hare- 
brained young fellows with which the audience was largely 
besprinkled would have paid any attention. 

In the whole of Paris there was no surer centre of infor- 
mation of the state of affairs at the front than the Cafe de la 
Paix. It w^as the principal resort of the Bonapartists. There 
were Pietri, the prefect of police, Sampierro, Abatucci, and a 
score or two of others ; all cultivating excellent relations with 
the Chateau. There was also the General Beaufort d'Haut- 
poul, to whom Bismarck subsequently, through the pen of 
Dr. Moritz Busch, did the greatest injury a man can do to a 
soldier, in accusing him of drunkenness when he came to 
settle some of the military conditions of the armistice at Ver- 
sailles. He was, as far as I remember, one of the two supe- 
rior French officers who estimated at its true value the 
strategic genius of Yon Moltke. The other was Colonel 
Stoffel. But General d'Hautpoul was even better enabled to 
judge ; he had seen Moltke at work in Syria more than thirty 
years before. He was in reality the Solomon Eagle of the 
campaign, before a single shot had been fired. " I know our 



A SOLOMON EAGLE. 397 

army, and I know Helmuth von Moltke," he said, shaking 
his head despondingly. " If every one of our officers were 
his equal in strategy, the chance would then only be equal. 
Moltke has the gift of the great billiard -player ; he knows 
beforehand the exact results of a shock between two bodies 
at a certain angle. ^Ye are a doomed nation." 

As a matter of course, his friends were very wroth at 
what they called " his unpatriotic language," and when the 
news of the engagement at Saarbruck arrived they crowed 
over him ; but he stuck to his text. " It is simply a feint on 
Moltke's part, and proves nothing at all. In two or three 
days we'll get the news of a battle that will decide, not only 
the fate of the whole campaign, but the fate of the Empire 
also." 

Two days afterwards, I met him near the Eue Saint- 
Florentin ; he looked absolutely crestfallen. " We have suf- 
fered a terrible defeat near Wissembourg, but do not breathe 
a word of it to any one. The Government is waiting for a 
victory on some other point, and then it will publish the two 
accounts together." 

The Government was reckoning without the newspapers, 
French and foreign. The latter might be confiscated, and 
in fact were, such as the Times and rindependance Beige ; 
but the French, notwithstanding the temporary law of M. 
Emile Ollivier, were more difficult to deal with. I am in- 
clined to think that if tliey had foreseen the terrible fate that 
was to befall the French armies they would have been more 
amenable, but in the beginning they anticipated nothing but 
startling victories, and, as such, looked upon the campaign in 
the light of a series of brilliant spectacular performances, 
glowing accounts of which were essentially calculated to in- 
crease their circulation. When MM. Garden and Chabrillat, 
respectively of the Gaulois and Figaro^ were released by the 
Prussial!^, they told many amusing stories to that effect, un- 
consciously confirming the opinion I have already expressed ; 
but the following, which I had from the lips of Edmond 
About himself, is better than any I can remember. 

A correspondent of one of the best Paris newspapers, on 
his arrival at the head-quarters of " the army of the Rhine," 
applied to the aide-major-general for permission to follow the 
operations. He had a good many credentials of more or less 
weight ; nevertheless the aide-major-general, in view of the 
formal orders of the Emperor and Marshal Leboeuf, felt 



398 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

bound to refuse the request. The journalist, on the other 
hand, declined to take "no" for an answer. "I have come 
with the decided intention to do justice, and more than jus- 
tice, perhaps, to your talent and courage, and it would be a 
pity indeed if I were not given the opportunity," he said. 

" I am very sorry," was the reply ; " but I cannot depart 
from the rules for any one." 

" But our paper has a very large circulation." 

"All the more reason to refuse you the authorization to 
follow the staU." 

The journalist would not look at matters in that light. 
He felt that he was conferring a favour, just as he would 
have felt in offering the advantage of a cleverly written puff 
of a premiere to a theatrical manager. Seeing that his argu- 
ments were of no avail, he delivered his parting shot. 

" This, then, general, is your final decision. I am afraid 
you'll have cause to regret this, for we, on our side, are de- 
termined not to give this war the benefit of publicity in our 
columns." 

M. Emile Ollivier's original decision was the right one, 
but, instead of embodying it in a temporary and exceptional 
order, he ought to have made it a permanent law in times of 
peace as well as war. On Saturday, the 16th of July, Count 
Culemburg, the Prussian Minister of the Interior, addressed 
a circular to the German papers, recommending them to ab- 
stain from giving any news, however insignificant, with re- 
gard to the movements of the troops. As far as I remember, 
the German editors neither protested, nor endeavoured to 
shirk the order ; they raised no outcry against " the muzzling 
of the press." Five days later, the French minister was at- 
tacked by nearly every paper in France for attempting to do 
a similar thing, and, rather than weather that storm in a tea- 
cup, he consented to a compromise, and condescended to ask 
where he might have commanded. In addition to this, he 
undertook that the Government itself should be the pur- 
veyor of war-news to the papers. Every editor of standing 
in Paris knew that this meant garbled, if not altogether 
mythical, accounts of events, and that even these would be 
held back until they could be held back no longer. In a 
few days their worst apprehensions in that respect Avere con- 
firmed. AYhile Paris was still ignorant of the terrible dis- 
aster at Wissembourg, the whole of Europe rang with the 
tidings. Then came the false report of a brilliant victory 



WAR CORRESPONDENTS. 399 

from the Goyernment agency. It made the Parisians frantio 
with joy, but the frenzy changed into one of anger when the 
truth became known through the maudlin and lachrymose 
despatches from the Imperial head-quarters, albeit that they 
by no means revealed the whole extent of the defeats suffered 
at Woerth and Spicheren. 

Nevertheless, the agency continued the even — or rather 
uneven — tenor of its way up to the last. The Republicans 
subsequently adopted the tactics of the Imperial Government, 
the Communists adhered to the system of those they had 
temporarily ousted. In the present note, I will deal only 
with events up to the 4:th of September. Patent as it must 
have been to the merest civilian, that the commanders were 
simply committing blunder after blunder, the movements of 
Bazaine were represented by the agency as the result of a 
masterly and profound calculation. Even such a pessimist 
as General Beaufort d'Hautpoul was taken in by those repre- 
sentations. He considered the " masterly inactivity " of Ba- 
zaine as an inspiration of genius. " He is keeping two hundred 
thousand German troops round Metz," he said several times. 
" These two hundred thousand men are rendered absolutely 
useless while we are recruiting our armies and reorganizing 
our forces." He seemed -^ 'together oblivious of the fact that 
these two hundred thout^.-nd Germans were virtually the 
gaolers of France's best army. 

I am unable to say whether General d'Hautpoul was in 
direct or indirect communication with the agency^ or whether 
some ingenious scribe belonging to it had overheard his ex- 
pressions of admiration and wilfully adopted them ; certain 
it is that the agency was the first to inspire the re^Dorters of 
those papers who took their cue from it with the flattering 
epithet of "glorious Bazaine." 

It was the same with regard to Palikao. His sententious 
commonplacq^were reported as so many oracular revelations 
dragged reluctantly from him. Had they been more familiar 
with Shakespeare than they were, or are, the scribes would 
have made Palikao exclaim with Macbeth, "The greatest is 
behind." And all the while the troops were marching and 
countermarching at haphazard, without a prQconceived plan, 
jeering at their leaders, and openly insulting the " phantom " 
Emperor, as they did at Chalons, for he was already no more 
than that. The fall of the Em|)ire does not date from Sedan, 
but from AYoerth and Spicheren ; and those most pertinently 



400 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

aware of it were not the men who dealt it the final blow less 
than a month later, but the immediate entourage of the Em- 
press at the Tuileries. 

For from that moment (the 6th or 7th of August) the en- 
tourage of the Empress began to think of saving the Empire 
by sacrificing, if needs be, the Emperor. " There is only one 
thing that can avert the ruin of the dynasty," said a lady-in- 
waiting on the Empress, to a near relative of mine ; " and 
that is the death of the Emperor at the head of his troops. 
That death would be considered an heroic one, and would 
benefit the Prince Imperial." 

I do not pretend to determine how far the Empress shared 
that opinion, but here are some facts not generally known, 
even to this day, and for the truth of which I can unhesi- 
tatingly vouch. 

The Empress did not know of the consultation that had 
taken place on the 1st of July, and to which I have already 
referred. But she did know that the Emperor was suffering 
from a very serious complaint, and that the disease had been 
aggravated since his departure througli his constantly being 
on horseback. M. Franceschini Pietri, the private secretary 
of the Emperor, had informed her to that effect on the 7th 
of August, when Forbach and Woerth had been fought. He 
also told her that the Emperor was not unwilling to return 
to Paris, and to leave the command-in-chief to Bazaine, but 
that his conscience and his pride forbade him to do so, unless 
some pressure were brought to bear upon him. I repeat, I 
can vouch for this, because I had it from the lips of M. 
Pietri, who was prefect of police until the 4th of Septem- 
ber. 

Meanwhile, others, besides M. Franceschini Pietri, had 
noticed the evident moral and mental depression of the Em- 
peror, increased, no doubt, by his acute physical sufferings, 
which were patent to almost every one with whom he came 
in immediate contact ; for an eye-witness wrote to me on the 
4th of August: "The Emperor is in a very bad state; after 
Saarbruck, Lebrun and Leboeuf had virtually to lift him off 
his horse. The young prince, who, as you have probably 
heard alread}^ was by his side all the time, looked very dis- 
tressed, for his father had scarcely spoken to him during the 
engagement. But after they got into the carriage, which 
was waiting about a dozen yards away, the Emperor put his 
arm round his neck and kissed him on the cheeks, while two 



THE EMPEROR'S ILLNESS. 401 

large tears rolled, down his now. I noticed that the Emperor 
had scarcely strength to walk that dozen yards." 

Lebceuf, who, like a great many more, has suffered to a 
certain extent for the faults of Marshal Niel, perceived well 
enough that something had to be done to cheer the Emperor 
in his misfortunes. It was he who proposed that the latter 
should return to Paris, accompanied by him, while the corps 
d'armee of Frossard, which had effected its retreat in good 
order, and several other divisions that had not been under 
fire as yet, should endeavour to retrieve matters by attacking 
the armies of Von Steinmetz and P'rederick- Charles, which 
at that identical moment were only in "course of formation." 
But Louis-Napoleon, while admitting the wisdom of the 
plan, sadly shook his head, and declared that he could not 
relinquish the chief command in view of the double defeat 
the army had suffered under his leadership. 

What had happened, then, during the twenty-four hours 
immediately following the telegram of M. Franceschini Pie- 
tri? Simply this: not only had the Empress refused to 
exercise the pressure which would have afforded her husband 
an excuse for his return, but she had thrown cold water on 
the idea of that return by a despatch virtually discountenan- 
cing that return. The cabinet had not been consulted in this 
instance. 

Nay, more ; the cabinet on the 7th of August despatched, 
in secret, M. Maurice Richard, Minister of Arts, which at 
that time was distinct from the Ministry of Public Instruc- 
tion, to inquire into the state of health of the Emperor and 
the degree of confidence with which he inspired the troops. 
That was on the 7th of August. He went by special train to 
Metz. Two hours after he was gone, Adolphe Ollivier told 
me and Ferrari at the Cafe de la Paix. A few hours after 
his return next'^ay, he told us the result of those inquiries. 
M. Richard had brought back the worst possible news. 

At a council of ministers, held early on the 9th, M. Emile 
Ollivier, in view of the communication made to him by his 
colleague, proposed the immediate return of the Emperor, 
fully expecting M. Richard to support him. The Empress 
energetically opposed the plan, and when M. Ollivier turned, 
as it were, to M. Richard, the latter kept ominously silent. 
Not to mince matters, he had been tampered with. M. 
Ollivier found himself absolutely powerless. 

A day or so before that — I will not be positive as to the 
27 



402 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

date — M. Ollivier telegraphed officially to the head-quarters 
at Metz, to request the return of the Prince Imperial, in ac- 
cordance with the generally expressed wish of the Paris pa- 
pers. M. Pietri told me that same day that the minister's 
telegram had been followed by one in the Empress's private 
cipher, expressing her wish that the Prince Imperial should 
remain in the army. She did not explain why. She merely 
recommended the Emperor to make the promise required, 
and then to pay no further heed to it. 

The regent had no power to summon parliament, never- 
theless she did so, mainly in order to overthrow the Ollivier 
ministry. I am perfectly certain that the Emperor never 
forgave her for it. If those who were at Chislehurst are 
alive when these notes appear, they will probably bear me 
out. 

What, in fact, could a parliament summoned under such 
circumstances be but a council of war, every one of whose 
decisions was canvassed in public and made the enemy still 
wiser than he was before? Of course, the Empress felt 
certain that she would be able to dismiss it as easily as it had 
been summoned ; she evidently did not remember the fable 
of the horse which had invited the man to get on his back in 
order to fight the stag. There is not the slightest doubt 
that, as I have already remarked, the Empress's main pur- 
pose was the overthrow of the Ollivier administration ; if 
proof were wanted, the evidence of the men who overthrew 
the Empire would be sufficient to establish the fact, and not 
one, but half a dozen, have openly stated that the defeat of 
the Ollivier ministry was accomplished with the tacit ap- 
proval of the court party : read^ " the party of the Empress," 
to which I have referred before. 

The list of the Empress's blunders, involuntary or the 
reverse, is too long to be transcribed in detail here ; I return 
to my impressions of men and things after my meeting with 
General Beaufort d'Hautpoul in the Eue de Eivoli. 

I do not suppose that in the whole of Paris there were a 
dozen sensible men who still cherished any illusions with 
regard to the possibility of retrieving the disasters by a dash 
into the enemy's country. The cry of " A Berlin ! " had 
been finally abandoned even by the most chauvinistic. But 
the hope still remained that the Prussians would be thrust 
back from the " sacred soil of France " by some brilliant 
coup de main, although I am positive that the Empire 



THE EMPRESS'S BLUNDERS. 403 

would have been doomed just the same if that hope had 
been realized. Among those who had faith in the coup 
de main were M. Paul de Cassagnac and, curiously enough, 
General Beaufort d'Hautpoul. He had suddenly conceived 
great hopes with regard to Bazaine. M. de Cassagnac 
seriously contemplated enlisting in the Zouaves. Strange to 
relate, M. Paul de Cassagnac, in spite of his well-known at- 
tachment to the Imperialist cause, was looked upon, by the 
most determined opponents of that cause among the masses, 
as a man to be trusted and consulted in a non-official way. 
I remember being on the Boulevard one evening after the 
affair at Beaumont, when the rage of the population was 
even stronger than after the defeats at Woerth and Forbach. 
All of a sudden we perceived a dense group swaying towards 
us — we were between the Rues Laffite and Le Peletier — and 
in the centre towered the tall figure of M. de Cassagnac. 
For a moment we were afraid that some mischief was being 
contemplated, the more that we had noticed several leaders 
of the revolutionary party — or, to speak by the card, of the 
Blanqui party — hovering near the Cafe Riche. But the 
demonstration was not a hostile one ; on the contrary, it had 
a friendly tendency, and showed a tacit acknowledgment 
that, whosoever else might hide the truth from them, M. de 
Cassagnac would not do so. " What about rifles, M. Paul ? " 
was the cry; "are there sufficient for us all?" It must be 
remembered that the levee en masse had been decreed. M. 
de Cassagnac could not tell the truth, and would not tell a 
lie. He frankly said, " I don't know." We noticed also that 
at his approach the Blanquists slunk away. The Empire 
had been tottering on its base until then ; after Beaumont 
it was virtually doomed. 



404 ^^' ENGLISHMAN IX PARIS. 



CHAPTER XXL 

The 4th of September — A comic, not a tragic revolution — A burlesque Harold 
and a burlesque Boadieea — The news of Sedan only known pui)lioly on 
the 3rd of September — Grief and consternation, but no raire — The latter 
feeling imported by the bands of Deleseluze, Blanqui, and Felix Pyat — 
Blanqui, ryat, «fc Co. ver.^{/s Favre, Gambetta, tS:; Co. — The former want 
their share of the spoil, and only get it some years afterwards — Eamail goes 
to the Palais-Bourbon — His report — Paris spends the night outdooi-s — 
Thiers a second-rate Talleyrand — His ,ioarney to the ditferont courts of 
Europe — His interview with" Lord Granville — The 4th of September— The 
Imperial eairles disappear — The ioyousness of the crowd — The Place de la 
Concorde — The gardens of the I'uileries — The crowds in the Rue de Rivoli 
scarcely pay attention to the Tuileries — The soldiers fraternizing with the 
people, and proclaimino: the republic from the barracks' windows — A seri- 
ous procession — Sampierro Gavini gives his opinion — The "heroic strug- 
gles " of an Empress, and the crownless coronation of " le Roi P^tau<l " — 
Ramail at the Tuileries — How M. Sardou saved the palace from being 
burned and sacked — The republic proclaimed — Illuminations as after a 
victory. 

OxLY those who were at a distance from Paris on the 4th 
of September, 18T0, can be dehided into the belief that the 
scenes enacted there on that day partook of a dramatic char- 
acter. Carefully and scriipnlonsly dovetailed, they constitute 
one vast burlesque of a revolution. It is not because the 
overthrow of the Second Empire was accomplished without 
bloodshed that I say this. Bloodshed would have only made 
the burlesque more gruesome, but it could have never con- 
verted it into a tragedy, the recollection of which would have 
made men think and shudder even after the lapse of many 
years. As it is, the recollection of the -ith of September can 
only make the independent witness smile. On the one hand, 
a burlesque Harold driven off to Wilhelmshohe in a landau, 
surrounded by a troop of Uhlans ; and a burlesque Boadieea 
slinking off in a hackney cab, 7ninus the necessary handker- 
chiefs for the cold in her head, — " fleeing when no one pur- 
sueth," instead of poisoning herself: on the other, "ceux 
qui prennen tla parol epour autrui," i.e. the lawyers, prenant 
le pouvoir pour eux-memes. Really, the only chronicler ca- 



THE 4TH OF SEPTEMBER. 405 

pable of dealing with the situation in the right spirit is our 
old and vahied friend, Mr. Punch. Personally, from the 
Saturday afternoon until the early hours on Monday, I saw- 
scarcely one incident worthy of being treated seriously ; nor 
did the accounts supplied to me by others tend to modify my 
impressions. 

Though the defeat at Sedan was virtually complete on 
Thursday the 1st at nine p.m., not the faintest rumour of it 
reached Paris before Friday evening at an advanced hour, 
and the real truth was not known generally nntil the Satur- 
day at the hour just named. There was grief and conster- 
nation on many faces, but no expression of fury or anger. 
That sentiment, at any rate in its outward manifestations, 
had to be supplied from the heights of Belleville and Mont- 
martre, Montrouge and Montparnasse, when, later on, a good 
many of the inhabitants of those delightful regions came 
down like an avalanche on the heart of the city. They were 
the lambs of Blanqui, Delescluze, Felix Pyat, and Milliere. 
They were dispersed on reaching the Boulevard Montmartre, 
and we saw nothing of them from where we were seated, at 
the Cafe de la Paix. By the time they rallied in the side 
streets and had marched to the Palais-Bourbon, they found 
their competitors, Favre, Gambetta, & Co., trying to oust the 
ministers of the Empire. But for that unfortunate delay we 
might have had the Commune on the 4th of September in- 
stead of on the 18th of March following. Blanqui, Pyat, & 
Co. never forgave Favre, Gambetta, & Co. for having fore- 
stalled them, and, above all, for not having shared the pro- 
ceeds of the spoil. This is so true that, even after many 
years of lording it, the successors of, and co-founders with, 
the firm of Favre, Gambetta, & Co. have been obliged, not 
only to grant an amnesty to those whom they cheated at the 
beginning, but to admit them to some of the benefits of the 
nndertaking ; Meline, Tirard, Eanc, Alphonse Humbert, 
Camille Barrere, and a hundred others more or less impli- 
cated in the Commune, are all occupying fat posts at the 
hour I write. 

A friend of ours, whose impartiality was beyond suspicion, 
and who had more strength and inclination to battle with 
crowds than any of ns, oft'ered to go and see how the land 
lay at the Palais-Bourbon. He returned in about an hour, 
and told us that Gambetta, perched on a chair, had been 
addressing the crowd from behind the railings, exhorting 



406 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

them to patience and moderation. " Clever trick that," said 
o ir informant; "it's the confidence-trick of housebreakers 
when two separate gangs have designs upon the same ' crib ; ' 
while the first arrivals ' crack ' it, they send one endowed 
with the ' gift of the gab ' to pacify the others." 

One thing is certain — Gambetta and his crew did not 
want to pursue the war, they wanted a Constituent Assembly 
which would have left them to enjoy in peace the fruits of 
their usurpation ; for theirs was as much usurpation as was 
the Coup d'Etat. Their subsequent " Xot an inch of our 
territory, not a stone of our fortresses," was an afterthought, 
when they found that Bismarck would not grant them as 
good a peace as he would have granted Napoleon at Donchery 
the morning after Sedan. 

At about ten on Saturday night everybody knew that there 
would be a night sitting, and I doubt whether one-fourth of 
the adult male population of Paris went to bed at all, even if 
they retired to their own homes. 

Our friend returned to the Palais-Bourbon, but failed to 
get a trustworthy account of what had happened during the 
twenty-five minutes the deputies had been assembled. All 
he knew was that nominally the Empire was still standing, 
though virtually it had ceased to exist; a bill for its deposi- 
tion having been laid on the table. On his way back to the 
Boulevards he saw the carriage of Thiers surrounded, and an 
attempt to take out the horses. He called Thiers " le receleur 
des vols commis au prejudice des monarchies." * 

Let me look for a moment at that second-rate Talleyrand, 
who has been grandiloquently termed the " liberator of the 
soil " because he happened to do what any intelligent bank 
manager could have done as well ; let me endeavour to estab- 
lish his share in the 4th of September. I am speaking on 
the authority of men who were behind the political scenes for 
many years, and whose contempt for nearly all the actors was 
equally great. Thiers refused his aid and counsel to the 
Empress, who solicited it through the intermediary of Prince 
Metternich and M. Prosper Merimee, but he also refused to 
accept the power offered to him by Gambetta, Favre, Jules 
Simon, etc., in the afternoon of the 4th of September. 
Nevertheless, he was here, there, and everywhere ; offering 
advice, but careful not to take any responsibility. Afterwards 

* " The receiver of the goods stolen from monarchies." — Editor. 



M. THIERS. 407 

he took a journey to the various courts of Europe. I only 
know the particulars of one interview — that with Lord Gran- 
ville — but I can vouch for their truth. After having held 
forth for two hours without giving his lordship a chance of 
edging in a word sideways, he stoj)ped ; and five minutes 
later, while Lord Granville was enumerating the reasons why 
the cabinet of St. James's could not interfere, he (Thiers) was 
fast asleep. When the conditions of peace were being dis- 
cussed, Thiers was in favour of giving up Belfort rather than 
pay another milliard of francs. "A city 3'ou may recover, a 
milliard of francs you never get back," he said. Neverthe- 
less, historians will tell one that Thiers made superhuman 
efforts to save Belfort. I did not like M. Thiers, and, being 
conscious of my dislike, I have throughout these notes en- 
deavoured to say as little as possible of him. 

The sun rose radiantly over Paris on the 4th of Sep- 
tember, and I was up betimes, though I had not gone to bed 
until 3 a.m. There was a dense crowd all along the Rue 
Roy ale and the Place de la Concorde, and several hours be- 
fore the Chamber had begun to discuss the deposition of the 
Bonapartes (which was never formally voted), volunteer- 
workmen were destroying or hauling down the Imperial 
eagles. The mob cheered them vociferously, and when one 
of these workmen hurt himself severely, they carried him 
away in triumph. Nevertheless, there was a good deal of 
hooting as several well-known members of the Chamber el- 
bowed their way through the serried masses. Though they 
were well known, I argued myself unknown in not knowing 
them. I was under the impresssion that they were Imperial- 
ists ; they turned out to be Republicans. The marks of dis- 
approval proceeded from compact groups of what wei'e ap- 
parently workmen. As I knew that no workmen devoted to 
the Empire would have dared to gather in that way, even if 
their numbers had been sufficient, and as I felt reluctant to 
inquire, I came to the natural conclusion that the hooters 
were the supporters of Blanqui, Pyat, & Co. The Commune 
was foreshadowed on the Place de la Concorde on that day. 

My experience of the 24th of February, 1848, told me 
that the Chamber would be invaded before long. In 1848 
there was no more danger for a foreigner to mix with the 
rabble than for a Frenchman. I felt not quite so sure about 
my safety on the 4th of September. My adventure in the 
Avenue de Clichy, which I will relate anon, had not hap- 



408 AN ENGLISHMAN IN FARIS. 

pened then, and I was not as careful as I became afterwards, 
still I remembered in time the advice of the prudent French- 
man — " AVhen in doubt, abstain ; " and I prejDared to retrace 
my steps to the Boulevards, where, I knew, there would be 
no mistake about my identity. At the same time, I am 
bound to say that no such accident as I dreaded, occurred 
during that day, as far as I am aware. There may or may 
not have been at that hour half a hundred spies of Bismarck 
in the city, but no one was molested. The Parisians were so 
evidently overjoyed at getting rid of the Empire, that for 
four and twenty hours, at any rate, they forgot all about the 
hated Germans and their march upon the capital. They 
were shaking hands with, and congratulating one another, as 
if some great piece of good fortune had befallen them. 
Years before that, I had seen my wife behave in a similarly 
joyous manner after having dismissed at a moment's notice 
a cook who had shamefully robbed us : the wife knew very 
well that, on the morrow, the tradesmen, the amount of 
whose bills the dishonest servant had pocketed for months, 
would be sending in their claims upon us. " Perhaps they 
will take into consideration that we dismissed her," she said, 
" and not hold us responsible." The Latin race, and espe- 
cially the French, are the females of the human race. 

I noticed that the gates of the Tuileries gardens on the 
Place de la Concorde were still open, and that the gardens 
themselves were black with people. It must have been about 
half -past ten or eleven. I did not go back by the Eue Royale, 
but by the Rue de Rivoli. The people were absolutely stream- 
ing down the street. There was not a single threatening 
gesture on their part; they merely looked at the flag still 
floating over the Tuileries, and passed on. When I got back 
to the Boulevards, I sat down outside the Cafe de la Paix de- 
termined not to stir if possible. I knew that Avhatever hap- 
pened the news of it would soon be brought thither. I was 
not mistaken. 

The first news we had was that the National Guards had 
replaced the regulars inside and around the Palais- Bourbon, 
which was either a sign that the latter could be no longer 
depended upon, or that the Republicans in the Chamber had 
carried that measure in their owm interest. I am bound to 
admit that I would always sooner take the word of a French 
officer than that of a deputy, of no matter what shade ; and 
I heard afterwards that the troops at the Napoleon barracks 



IN THE TUILERIES GARDENS. 409 

and elsewhere had begun to fraternize with the people as 
early as eight in the morning, by shouting, from the windows 
of their rooms, " Vive la Republique!" The Chamber was 
i 11 v;ided, -nevertheless ; it is as well to state that this invasion 
g;ive Jules Favre & Co. a chance of repairing in hot haste to 
tlie Hotel de Ville, wliere the Government of the National 
Defence was proclaimed. 

To return to my vantage-post at the Cafe de la Paix. 
The crowds on the Place de la Concorde, apparently sta- 
tioned there since early morning, did not seem to me to have 
been brought thither at the instance of a leader or in obedi- 
ence to a watchword. I except, of course, the groups of 
which I have already spoken, and which jeered at the repub- 
lican deputies. The streams of people 1 met on my return 
in the Rue de Rivoli seemed impelled by their own curiosity 
to the Chamber of Deputies. Not so the procession which 
hove in sight almost the moment I had sat down at the Cafe. 
It wheeled to the left when reaching the Rue de la Paix. It 
was composed of National Guards witli and without their 
muskets, each company preceded by its own officers, — the 
armed ones infinitely more numerous than the unarmed, but 
all marching in good order and in utter silence ; in fact, so 
silently as to bode mischief. Behind and before there strode 
large contingents of ordinary citizens, and I noticed two 
things: that few of them wore blouses, and that a good many 
wore kepis, apparently quite new. The wearers, though 
equally undemonstrative, gave one the impression of being 
the leaders. Most of those around me shook their heads 
ominously as they passed; their silence did not impose upon 
them. I am free to confess that I did not share their opin- 
ion. To me, the whole looked like stern determined mani- 
festors; not like turbulent revolutionaries. I had seen noth- 
ing like them in '48. Nevertheless, it was I who was 
mistaken, for, according to M. Sampierro Gavini, who, un- 
like his brother Denis, belonged to the opposition during the 
Empire, it was they who invaded the Chamber. I may add 
that M. Sampierro Gavini, though in the opposition, had lit- 
tle or no sympathy with those who overthrew the Empire or 
established the Commune. He had an almost idealistic faith 
in constitutional means, and a somewhat exaggerated rever- 
ence for the name of Bonaparte. He was a Corsican. 

For several hours nothing occurred worthy of record. 
The accounts brouglit to us by eye-witnesses of events going 



410 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

on simultaneously at the Tuileries and the Palais- Bourbon 
showed plainly that there was no intention on the mob's part 
to exalt the Empress into a Marie-Antoinette. Our friend 
who had given us the news of the Chamber on the previous 
night, and who was a relative of the celebrated Dr. Yvan, an 
habitu6 of the Cafe de la Paix, had made up his mind in the 
morning that " it would be more interesting to watch the " 
last heroic struggles of an Empress against iron fortune than 
the " crownless coronation of a half-score of ' rois Petauds.' " * 
As such, he had taken up his station in the gardens of the 
Tuileries, close to the gate dividing the private from the 
public gardens. It was he who gave us the particulars of 
the scenes preceding and succeeding the Empress's flight, 
the exact moment of which no one seemed to know. The 
account of these scenes was so exceedingly graphic, that I 
have no difficulty whatsoever in remembering them. More- 
over, I put down at the time several of his own expressions. 
I do not know what has become of him. He went to New- 
Zealand on account of some unhappy love-affair, and was 
never heard of any more. Though scarcely thirty then, he 
was a promising young doctor. His name was Eamail, but I 
do not know in what relation he stood to Dr. Yvan ; who, 
however, always called him cousin. 

Young Ramail had been in the Tuileries gardens since 
noon. The crowd w^as already very large at that hour, but it 
seemed altogether engrossed in the doings of an individual 
who was knocking down a gilded eagle on the top of the 
gate. " Mind," said Ramail, " that was at twelve o'clock, or 
somewhere thereabouts ; and I do not think that the sitting 
at the Chamber began until at least an hour later. If the 
Republicans say, in days to come, that the Empire was 
virtually condemned before they voted its overthrow, they 
will, at any rate, have the semblance of truth on their side, 

* In olden times, every community, corporation, and guild in France elected 
annually a kinsf — even the mendicants, whose ruler took the title of King P^- 
taud, from the Latin peto^ I ask. The latter's court, as a matter of course, was 
a perfect bear-garden, in which every one did as he liked, in which every one 
was as much sovereign as the titular one. The expression, " the Court of King 
Petaud," became a synonym for everything that was disorderly, ridiculous, and 
disgusting. 

" Oui, je sors de chez vous fort mal edifice ; 
Dans toutes mes lemons j'y suis contrariee ; 
On n'y respecte rien, chacun y parle liaut, 
Et c'e'st tout justement la cour du roi Petaud." 

(MoLiERE, *^ Tartuffe," Act i. Sc. 1.)— Editor. 



IN THE TUILERIES-GARDENS. 411 

because there were at least two thousand persons looking on 
without trying to prevent the destruction of the eagles by 
word or deed ; and two thousand persons, if they happen to 
agree with them, are to the Republicans the whole of France ; 
while two millions, if they haj^pen to diifer from them, are 
only a corrupt and unintelligent majority. 

"But I was wondering," he went on, "at the utter in- 
gratitude of the lower and lower-middle classes. I feel cer- 
tain that among those who stood staring there, half owned 
their prosperous condition to the eighteen years of Imperial- 
ism ; yet I heard not a single expression of regret at the 
brutal sweeping away of it. 

" I may have stood there for about an hour, a score of 
steps away from the gate before the swingbridge, when, all at 
once, I felt myself carried forward with the crowd ; and be- 
fore I had time to look round, I found myself inside that 
other gate. There were about five hundred persons who had 
entered with me, but in what manner the gate gave way or 
was opened I have not the vaguest idea. We went no further ; 
we stopped as suddenly as we had advanced. I turned 
round vv'iih difficulty, and looked over the heads of those 
behind me ; sure enough, the gates were wide open and the 
crowd at the rear was much denser than it had been ten min- 
utes before. Still they stood perfectly still, without bringing 
any pressure to bear upon us. Then I turned round again, 
and saw the cause of their reluctance to move. The Imperial 
Guard was being massed in front of the principal door lead- 
ing from the private gardens into the palace. ' My dear 
Eamail,' I said to myself, ' you stand a very good chance of 
having a bullet through your head before you are ten minutes 
older; because, at the slightest move of the crowd among 
which you now stand, the guard will fire.' I own that I was 
scarcely prepared to face death for such a trivial cause as 
this ; and I was quietly edging i ly way out of the crowd, 
which was beginning to utter low ominous growls, when a 
voice, ringing clear upon the air, shouted, ' Citoyens ! ' I 
stopped, turned round once more, and stood on tiptoe. 

" The speaker was a tall, handsome fellow^, young to all 
appearance, and with a voice like a bell. He looked a gentle- 
man, but I have never seen him before to my knowledge. 
His companion I knew at once ; it was Victorien Sardou. 
There is no mistaking that face. I have heard some people 
say that it is not a bit like that of the great Xapoleon, while 



412 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

others maintain that, placing the living man and the portrait 
of the dead one side by side, one could not tell the difference. 
I'll undertake to say this, that if M. Sardou had donned a 
uniform, such as the lieutenant of artillery wore at Areola, 
for instance, he might have taken the Empress by the hand 
and led her out safely among the people, who would have 
believed in some miraculous resurrection. 

" To come back to my story. ' Citoyens,' repeated M. 
Sardou's companion, ' I do not wonder at your surprise that 
the garden should not be open to you and its ingress forbid- 
den by soldiers. The Tuileries belong to the people, now 
that the Empire is gone ; for gone it is by this time, in spite 
of the Imperial Guard massed before yonder door. Conse- 
quently, my friend and I propose to go and ask for the with- 
drawal of these soldiers. But, in order to do this, you must 
give us your promise not to budge; for the slightest attempt 
on your part to do so before our return may lead to blood- 
shed, and I am convinced that you are as anxious as we are 
to avoid such a calamity.' 

" If that young fellow is not an actor, he ouglit to be. 
Every word he said could be heard distinctly and produced 
its effect. The crowd cheered him and promised unani- 
mously to wait. Then we saw him and M. Sardou take out 
their handkerchiefs and tie them to the end of their sticks. 
Perhaps it was well they did, for as I saw them boldly walk 
up the central avenue, I was not at all convinced that their 
lives were not in danger. My sight is excellent, and I no- 
ticed a decidedly hostile movement on the part of the troops 
ranged in front of the principal door, and an officer of Mo- 
biles was evidently of my opinion, for, though he followed 
them at a distance, he kept prudently behind the trees, shel- 
tering himself as much as possible. I do not pretend to be 
wiser than most of my fellow-men, but I doubt whether 
many among those who watched M. Sardou and his com- 
panion suspected the true drift of their self-imposed mission. 
They merely wished to save the Tuileries from being pil- 
laged and burnt down. I do not wish to libel the Imperial 
Gruard or their officers, but I should feel much surprised if 
that noble idea ever entered their heads. What was the mag- 
nificent pile to them, now that one of their idols had left it, 
probably for ever, and the other was about to do the same ? 
At any rate, the suspicious movement was there. I have 
forgotten to tell you that the inner gate was closed and I saw 



M. VICTORIEN SARDOU. 413 

M. Sardou parley through its bars with one of the guardians. 
Then a superior officer, accompanied by a civilian, came out ; 
but by this time, the crowd, which had kept back, was be- 
ginning to move also, I among them. All of a sudden, the 
general, who turned out to be General Mellinet, gets on a 
chair, while his companion, who turns out to be M. de Les- 
seps, stands by him. The Imperial Guard disappears, seeing 
which, the crowd, no longer apprehensive of being shot down, 
advances rapidly to within a few steps of the gate. Then 
there is a cheer, for the Imperial flag is hauled down from 
the roof. ' Gentlemen,' says the general, ' the Tuileries are 
empty, the Empress is gone. But it is my duty to guard the 
palace, and I count upon you to help me.' He says a great 
deal more, but the crowd are pressing forward all the same. 
I feel that the crucial moment has arrived, and that the 
palace will be invaded, in spite of the general's speechifying, 
when lo, the Gardes Mobiles issue from the front door, and 
range themselves in two rows. The gates are opened, the 
crowd rushes in, but the Mobiles are there to prevent them 
making any excursions, either upstairs or into the apart- 
ments, and in a few minutes we find ourselves in the Place 
du Carrousel. The palace has been virtually saved by M. 
Sardou." 

Half an hour later, we receive the news that the Govern- 
ment of the National Defence has been proclaimed at the 
Hotel de Ville, and that night Paris is illuminated as after a 
victory. 



414 AN ENGLISHMAN IN TAKIS. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

The siege — The Parisians oonviiiocHl that the Cioniians will not invest Paris- 
Paris booonios a vjist drill-trround, novertholoss -The Parisians leave otT 
singintr, but listen to itinerant performers, though the latter no lonijcer sing 
the " Mai-si'illaise"— The tlieatres elosed — The Coni^die-Frani^uise and th 
Opera — Intlux of tlie Gardes Mobiles — Tlie Parisian no longer ehatts tho 
piwineial, but does the honours of the eity to him — The stolid, gaunt 
Breton and the astute and eynical Xorinand —The gardens of the Tuileries 
an artillery park — Tl>e mitrailleuse still eomnumds eonfidenee— Tlie papers 
try to be eomie — Food may fail, driid; will not — My visit to the wim- depot 
at Berey — An otiieiars information — Cattle in the publie st^uares and on 
the outer Boulevards — Fear with regard to them — Every man earries a ritio 
— The woo(.ls in the suburbs are set on tire — The statue of 8trasburg on tho 
Plaee-de la C'oneordi* — M. Prudhomnie to his sons — The men who do not 
spout— Tlie Freneh shopkeeper and bourgeois — A story of his greed — lie 
reveals tlie whereabouts of ttie eable laid on the bed of the Seine -Ohseuro 
heroes— Would-be Kavaillaes and Balthazar Oerards— Inventors of sehenies 
for the instant ainuhiUition ot' all the (iermans — A niusieal mitrailleuse — 
An exhibition aiul leeture at the Aleazar— The last train— Trains eonverted 
into dwellings for the suburban po(»r— Interior of a railwav .station— Tho 
spy mania— "Where the Parisians ought to have looked lor spies — I am 
arrested as a spy — A ehat with the otlieer in ehargo — A terrible-looking 
knife. 

Ix spite of the frequent reports from tlie provinces that 
the Gerniiins were marching on Paris, tliere were thousands 
of peo]ik^ in tlie capital who seriously maintained that they, 
the Cermans, would not dare to invest, let alone, shell it. 
]5iit it must not be inferred, as numy English writers have 
done, that this contidence was due to a mistaken view of the 
(un-mans' pluck, or their reluctance to beard the ''lion" in 
his den. Not at all. The Parisians simply credited their 
foes with the sujierstitious love and reverence for " the cen- 
tre of light and civilization " which they themselves felt. 
Tliey did not take their cue from Victor Hugo's "high- 
falutiir" remonstrance to King William ; on the contrary, it 
was the poet who translated their sentiments. It was not a 
case of " one fool making many ; " but of many mute inglori- 
ous visionaries inspiring a still greater one, who had the gift 
of eloquence, which ek^quence, in this instance, boj'dered 
very closely on sublimated drivel. 



THE SIEGE. 415 

Nevertheless, the whole of Paris became suddenly trans- 
formed into one vast drill-ground, and the clang of arms re- 
sounded through the city day and night. For the time being, 
the crowds left off singing, albeit that they listened now and 
then devoutly and reverently to itinerant performers, male 
and female, who had paraphrased the patriotic airs of certain 
operas for the occasion. The " Pars beau mousquetaire," 
etc., of Halevy, became " Pars beau volontaire ; " the " Guerre 
aux tyrans," of the same composer, " Guerre aux all'mands," * 
and so forth. 

All the theatres had closed their doors by this time, the 
Comedie-Fran9aise being last, I believe ; though, almost im- 
mediately afterward, it threw open its portals once more for 
at least two performances a week, and often a third time, in 
aid of the victims of the siege. Meanwhile, several rooms 
were being got ready for the reception of the wounded ; the 
new opera-house, still unfinished, was made into a commissa- 
riat and partly into a barracks, for the provincial Gardes 
Mobiles were flocking by thousands to the capital, and the 
camps could not hold them all. For once in a way tlie Pari- 
sian forgot to chaff the provincial who came to pay him a 
visit ; and considering that, even under such circumstances, 
all drill and no play w^ould make Jacques a dull boy, he not 
only received him very cordially, but showed him some of 
the lions of the capital, at which the long-haired gaunt and 
stolid Breton stared without moving a muscle, only mutter- 
ing an unintelligible gibberish, which might be an invocation 
to his ancient pagan gods, or a tribute of admiration ; while 
the more astute and cynical, though scarcely more impres- 
sionable Normand, ten thousand of which had come from 
the banks of the Marne, showed the thought underlying all 
his daily actions, in one sentence : " C'est hen beau, mais 9a 
a coute beaucoup d'argent ; fallait mieux le garder en poche." 
Even at this supreme moment, he remembered, with a kind 
of bitterness, that he had been made to pay for part of all 
this glorious architecture. 

The Cirques Napoleon and de I'lmperatrice — the Repub- 
lic had not had time to change their names — had become a 
kind of left-luggage office for these human cargoes, taken 
thither at their arrival, which happened generally during the 

* The first from " Les Mousquetaires de la Eeine ; " the second from " Charles 
Vl."— Editor. 



416 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

night. In the morning they were transferred to their per- 
manent encampments, and their military education was pro- 
ceeded with at once. I am afraid I am not competent to 
judge of the merits of the method adopted, but I was by no 
means powerfully impressed with the knowledge displayed 
by the instructors. 

The gardens of the Tuileries had been closed to the pub- 
lic, who had to be satisfied with admiring the ordnance and 
long rows of horses parked there from a distance. Did the 
latter lend enchantment to the view ? Apparently, for they 
were never tired of gazing with ecstasy on the mitrailleuses. 
The gunners in charge treated the foremost of the gazers 
now and then to a lecture on artillery practice, through the 
railings of the gates. In whatsoever else they had lost faith, 
those murderous engines of war evidently still commanded 
their confidence. 

The frightful din that marked the first wrecks of the war 
had ceased, but Paris did by no means look crestfallen. The 
gas burned brightly still, the cafes w^ere full of people, the 
restaurants had all their tables occupied ; for we w^ere not " in- 
vested" yet, and the idea of scarcity, let alone of famine, 
though a much-discussed contingency, was not a staring, 
stubborn fact. " It will never become one," said and thought 
many, " and all that talk about doling out rations already is 
so much nonsense." The papers waxed positively comic on 
the subject. They also waxed comic over the telegrams of 
the King of Prussia to his Consort ; but they left off harping 
on that string, for very shame' sake. 

One thing was certain from the beginning of the siege — 
whatever else might fail, there was enough wine and to spare 
to cheer the hearts of men who professed to do and dare more 
than men. Though the best part of my life had been spent 
in Paris, I had, curiously enough, never seen the wine and 
spirit depots at Bercy ; in fact, I was profoundly ignorant of 
that, as well as of other matters connected with the food- 
supply of Paris. So I wrote to a member of the firm wdiich 
had supplied me for many years with wine and spirits, and 
he took me thither. 

I should think that the " entrepot-general," as it is called, 
occupied, at that time, not less than sixty acres of ground, 
which meant more than treble that area as far as storage 
was concerned; for there was not only the cellarage, but 
the buildings above ground, rising, in many instances, to 



THE WINE DEPOT AT BERCY. 417 

three and four stories. The entrepot consisted, and consists 
still, I believe, of three distinct parts : one for wines ; an- 
other for what the French call "alcohols," and we " spirits; " 
a third, much smaller, for potable, or, rather, edible oils. 
The latter wing contains the cellarage of the general admin- 
istration of the hospitals. The spirit-cellars were absolutely 
empty at the time of my visit ; their contents had been re- 
moved to a bomb and shell proof cellarage hard by. 

Though I had come to see, I felt very little wiser after 
leaving the cellars than before ; for, truth to tell, I was ab- 
solutely bewildered. I had no more idea of the quantity of 
wine stored there than a child. My guide laughed. 

" We'll soon make the matter clear to you," he said, shak- 
ing hands with a gentleman who turned out to be one of the 
principal employes. " This gentleman will tell you almost to 
a hectolitre the quantity of ordinary wine in*^ store. You 
know pretty well the number of inhabitants of the capital, 
and though it has considerably increased during the last few 
days, and is not unlikely to decrease during the siege, if siege 
there be, the influx does not amount to a hundredthousand. 
Now, monsieur, will you tell this gentleman what you have 
in stock?" 

" We have got at the present moment 1,600,000 hecto- 
litres of ordinary wine in our cellars. Ten days ago we had 
nearly one hundred thousand more, but the wine-shops and 
others have laid in large provisions since then. The more 
expensive wines I need not mention, because the quantity is 
very considerably less, and, moreover, they are not likely to 
be wanted ; though, if they were wanted, they would keep us 
going for many, many weeks. At a rough guess, the number 
of ' souls ' within the fortifications is about 1,700,000, with 
the recent increase 1,800,000; consequently, with what the 
Miquoristes' have recently bought, one hundred litres for 
every man, woman, and child. I do not reckon the contents 
of private cellars, nor those of the wine-merchants, apart 
from their recent purchases. Nor is ordinary wine much 
dearer than it was in years of great plenty ; it is, in fact, less 
by twenty-five francs or thirty francs than in the middle of 
the fifties. I am comparing prices for quarter pipes, contain- 
ing from two hundred and ten to two hundred and thirty 
litres. There is no feai of regrating here, nor the likelihood 
of our having to drink water for some time." 

On our homeward journev, we noticed bullocks, pigs, and 
28 



41 S AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

sheep littered down in some of the public squares and on the 
outer boulevards. The st?.nted grass in the former had al- 
ready entirely disappeared, and it was evident that, with the 
utmost care, the cattle would deteriorate under the existing 
circumstances; for fodder would probably be the first com- 
modity to fail ; as it was, it had already risen to more than 
tvice its former price. Moreover, the competent judges 
f j-ired that, iti the event of a rainy autumn, the cattle penned 
ill such small spaces would be more subject to epidemic dis- 
eases, which would absolutely render them unfit for human 
food. In view of such a contingency, the learned members 
of the Academic des Sciences were beginning to put their 
heads together, but the results of their deliberations were not 
known as yet. 

We returned on foot as we had come ; private carriages 
had entirely disappeared, and though the omnibuses and 
cabs were plying as usual, their progress was seriously im- 
peded by long lines of vans, heavily laden with neat deal 
boxes, evidently containing tinned provisions. Very few fe- 
male passengers in the public conveyances, and scarcely a man 
without a rifle. They were the future defenders of the capi- 
tal, who had been to Viucennes, where the distribution of 
arms was going on from early morn till late at night. In 
fact, the sight of a working-man not provided with a rifle, a 
mattock, a spade, or a pickaxe was becoming a rarity, for a 
great many had been engaged to aid the engineers in digging 
trenches, spiking the ground, etc. 

I did not, and do not, feel competent to judge of the 
utility of all these means of defense ; one of them, however, 
seemed to be conceived in the wrong spirit : I allude to the 
tiring of the woods around Paris. AVith the results of For- 
bach and Woerth to guide them, the generals entrusted with 
the defence of Paris could not leo.ve the woods to stand ; but 
was there any necessity to destroy them in the way they did? 
In spite of the activity displayed, there were still thousands 
of idle hands anxious to be employed. Why were not the 
trees cut down and transported to Paris, for fuel for the com- 
ing winter? At that moment there were lots of horses avail- 
able, and such a measure would have given us the double ad- 
vantage of saving coals for the manufacture of gas, and of 
protecting from the rigours of the coming winter hundreds 
whose sufferings would have been mitigated by light and heat. 
Personally, I did not suffer much. From what I have seen 



. FRENCHMEN'S GREED. 419 

during the siege, I have come to the conchision that short- 
comings in the way of food are far less hard to bear, nay, are 
almost cheerfully borne, in a warm room and with a lamp 
brightly burning. I leave out of the question the quantities 
of mineral oil wasted in the attempt to set fire to the woods, 
because in many instances the attempt failed utterly. 

Meanwhile, patriotism was kept at the boiling point, by 
glowing reports of the heroic defence of General Uhrich at 
Strasburg. The statue, representing the capital of Alsace on 
tho Place de la Concorde, became the goal of a reverent pil- 
grimage on the part of the Parisians, though the effect of it 
was spoiled too frequently by M. Prudhomme holding forth 
sententiousiy, to his sons apparently, to the crowd in reality. 
These discourses reminded one too much of Heine's sneer, 
that " all Frenchmen are actors, and the worse are generally 
on the stage." In this instance, however, the amateurs ran 
the professional very hard. The crowds were not hypercriti- 
cal, though, and they applauded the speaker, who departed, 
accompanied by his offspring, with the proud consciousness 
that he was a born orator, and that he had done his duty to 
his country by spouting platitudes. It is not difficult to give 
the general sequel to that amateur performance. INext morn- 
ing there is a line in some obscure paper, and M. Prudhomme, 
beside himself with joy, leaves his card on the journalist who 
wrote it ; the journalist leaves his in return, and for the next 
six months the latter has his knife and fork laid at M. Prud- 
homme's table. The acquaintance generally terminates on 
M. Prudhomme's discovery that Madame Prudhomme carried 
her friendship too far by looking after the domestic concerns 
of the scribe, at the scribe's bachelor quarters. 

The men who did not spout were the Duruys, the Meis- 
soniers, and a hundred others I could mention. The eminent 
historian and grand-master of the University, though sixty, 
donned the simple uniform of a National Guard, and per- 
formed his garrison duties like the humblest artisan, only dis- 
tinguished from the latter by his star of grand-officer of the Le- 
gion d'llonneur ; the great painter did the same. The French 
shopkeeping bourgeois is, as a rule, a silly, pompous creature; 
very frequently, he is mean and contemptible besides. 

Here is a story for the truth of which I can vouch, and 
which shows him in his true light. In the skirmish in which 
Lieutenant Winslow was killed, some damage had been done 
to the inn at Schirlenhoff, where the Baden officers were at 



420 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

breakfast when they were surprised by General de Bernis and 
his men. The general had his foot already in the stirrup, 
and was about to remove his prisoners, when Boniface made 
his appearance, coolly asking to whom he was to present the 
bill for the breakage. The general burst out laughing : 
" The losing party pays the damage as a rule," he said, " but 
France is sufficiently rich to reverse the rule. Here is double 
the amount of your bill." 

A second story, equally authentic. A cable had been 
secretly laid on the bed of the Seine between Paris and Havre, 
shortly before the siege. Two small shopkeepers of St. Ger- 
main revealed the fact for a consideration to the Germans, 
who had but very vague suspicions of it, and who certainly 
did not know the land-bearings ; one of the scoundrels was 
caught after the siege, the other escaped. The one who was 
tried pleaded poverty, and received a ridiculously small sen- 
tence. It transpired afterwards that he was exceedingly well 
paid for his treachery, and that he cheated his fellow-informer 
out of his share. 

The contrast is more pleasant to dwell upon. There were 
hundreds of obscure heroes, by which I do not mean those 
prepared to shed their blood on the battle-field, but men with 
a sublime indifference to life, courting the fate of a Ravaillac 
and a Balthazar Gerard. History would have called them 
regicides, and perhaps ranked them with paid assassins had 
they accomplished their purpose, would have held them up 
to the scorn of posterity as bloodthirsty fanatics, — and his- 
tory, for once in a way, would have been wrong. In their 
reprehensible folly, they were more estimable than the Jules 
Favres, the Gambettas who played at being the saviours of the 
country, and who were only the saviours of their needy, fel- 
low political adventurers. 

Apart from the former, there were the inventors of im- 
possible schemes for the instantaneous annihilation of the 
three hundred thousand Germans around Paris, — inventors 
who supply the comic note in the otherwise terrible drama, — 
inventors, who day by day besiege the Ministry for War, and 
to whom, after all, the minister's collaborateurs are compelled 
to listen " on the chance of there being something in their 
schemes." 

" I am asking myself, every now and then, whether I am 
a staff-officer or one of the doctors at Charenton," said Prince 
Bibesca, one evening. 



INVENTORS AND SAVIOURS. 421 

*' Since yesterday morning," he went on, " I have been in- 
terviewed by a dozen inventors, every one of whom wanted 
to see General Trochu or General Schmitz, and would scarcely 
be persuaded that I would do as well. The first one simply 
took the breath out of me. I had no energy left to resist the 
others, or to bow them out politely ; if they had chosen to 
keep on talking for four and twenty hours, I should have 
been compelled to listen. He was a little man, about the 
height of M. Thiers. His opening speech was in proportion 
to his height ; it consisted of one line. ' Monsieur, I annihi- 
late the Germans with one blow,' he said. I was thrown off 
my guard in spite of myself, for etiquette demands that I 
should keep serious in spite of myself ; and I replied, ' Let 
me fill my pipe before you do it.' 

" Meanwhile, my visitor spread out a large roll of paper 
on the table. ' I am not an inventor,' he said ; ' I merely 
adapt the lessons of ancient history to the present circum- 
stances. I merely modify the trick of the horse of Troy. 
Here is Paris with its ninety-six bastions, its forts, etc. I 
draw three lines : along the first I send twenty-five thousand 
men pretending to attack the northern positions of the 
enemy ; along the second line I send a similar number, ap- 
parently bent on a similar attempt to the south ; my fifty 
thousand troops are perfectly visible to the Germans, for they 
commence their march an hour or so before dusk. Mean- 
while darkness sets in, and that is the moment I choose to 
despatch a hundred and fifty thousand troops, screened and 
entirely concealed by a movable wall of sheet iron, blackened 
by smoke. My inventive powers have gone no further than 
this. My hundred and fifty thousand men behind their wall 
penetrate unhindered as far as the Prussian lines, where a 
hundred thousand fall on their backs, taking aim over the 
wall, while fifty thousand keep moving it forward slowly. 
Twelve shots for every man make twelve hundred thousand 
shots — more than sufficient to cause a panic among the Ger- 
mans, who do not know whence the firing proceeds, because 
my wall is as dark as night itself. Supposing, however, that 
those who have been left in the camp defend themselves, their 
projectiles will glance off against the sheet iron of the wall, 
which, if necessary, can be thrown down finally by our own 
men, who will finish their business with the bayonet and the 
sword.' 

" My second visitor had something not less formidable to 



422 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

propose ; namely, a sledge-hammer, fifteen miles in circum- 
ference, and weighing ten millions of tons. It was to be 
lifted up to a certain altitude by means of balloons. A 
favourable wind had to be waited for, which would send the 
balloons in the direction of Versailles, where the ropes con- 
fining the hammer would be cut. In its fall it would crush 
and bury the head-quarters and the bulk of the German army. 

" The third showed me the plan of a musical mitrailleuse, 
which would deal death and destruction while playing Wag- 
ner, Schubert, and Mendelssohn, the former by preference. 
' The Germans,' he remarked, ' are too fond of music to be 
able to resist the temptation of listening. They are sure to 
draw near in thousands when my mitrailleuses are set playing. 
We have got them at our mercy.' I asked him to send me a 
small one as a sample: he promised to do so." 

Another evening I was induced to go to the Alcazar. I 
had been there once before, to hear Theresa. This time it 
was to see an " Exhibition of Engines of War," and to listen 
to a practical lecture thereon. The audience was as jolly as 
if the Germans were a thousand miles away — jollier, per- 
haps, than when they listened to " Eien n'est sacre pour un 
sapeur ; " because they were virtually taking part in the per- 
formance. The lecturer began by an exhibition of bullet- 
proof pads, by means of which the soldier might fearlessly 
advance towards the enemy ; " because they render that part 
of the body on which they are worn invulnerable." A wag 
among the spectators made a remark about "retreating sol- 
diers," which I cannot transcribe ; but the exhibitor, an 
Italian or Spanish major, to j-udge by his accent, was in no 
way disconcerted. He placed his pad against an upright 
board in the shape of a target and began firing at it with a 
revolver at a distance of four or five paces. The material, 
though singed, was not pierced, but the spectators seemed by 
no means convinced. " You wear the pad, and let me have 
a shot at you," exclaimed one; at which offer the major 
made a long face. " Have you ever tried the experiment on 
a living animal ? " asks another. " Perfectly," replied the 
major ; " I tried it on my clerk," which admission was hailed 
with shouts of laughter. There were cries for the clerk, w'ho 
did not appear. A corporal of the National Guards proposed 
to try an experiment on the major and the pad with the 
bayonet fastened to a chassepot ; thereupon major and pad 
suddenly disappeared behind the wings. 



AN EVENING AT THE ALCAZAR. 423 

The next inventor exhibits a fire-extinguisher ; the audi- 
ence require more than a verbal explanation ; some of them 
propose to set the Alcazar on fire. A small panic, checked 
in time ; and the various demonstrations are proceeded with 
amidst shouts, and laughter, and jokes. They 3'ield no prac- 
tical results, but they kill time. They are voted the next 
best thing to the theatre. 

By this time we were shut oS from the outer w^orld. On 
the 17th of September, at night, the last train of the Orleans 
Railway Company had left Paris. The others had ceased 
working a day or so before, and placed their rolling stock in 
safety. Not the whole of it, though. A great many of the 
third-class carriages have had their seats taken out, the lug- 
gage and goods vans have been washed, the cattle trucks 
boarded in, and all these transformed into temporary dwell- 
ings for the suburban poor who have been obliged to seek 
shelter within the walls of the capital. The interiors of the 
principal railway stations present scenes that would rejoice 
the hearts of genre-painters on a large scale. The Avashing 
and cooking of all these squatters is done on the various 
platforms, the carriages have become parlor and bedroom in 
one, and there has even been some ingenuity displayed in 
their decoration. The womankind rarely stir from their im- 
provised homes ; the men are on the fortifications or roaming 
the streets of Paris. Part of the household gods has been 
stowed inside the trucks, the rest is piled up in front. The 
domestic pets, such as cats and dogs, have, as yet, not been 
killed for food, and the former have a particularly good time 
of it, for mice and rats abound, especially in the goods- 
sheds. Here and there a goat gravely stalking along, hap- 
pily unconscious of its impending doom ; and chanticleer 
surrounded by a small harem trying to make the best of 
things. 

Of course, the sudden and enormous influx of human 
beings could not be housed altogether in that w^ay, but care 
has been taken that none of them shall be shelterless. All 
the tenantless apartments, from the most palatial in the 
Faubourg St. Honore and Champs-Elysees to the humblest 
in the popular quarters, have been utilized, and the pot-au- 
feu simmers in marble fireplaces, while Gallic Hodge sees his 
face reflected in gigantic mirrors the like of which he never 
saw before. The dwellings that have been merely vacated 
by their tenants who have flitted to Horn burg and Baden- 



424 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Baden, to Nice and elsewhere, are as yet not called into 
requisition by the authorities. 

From the moment we were cut off from the outer world, 
the spy mania, which had been raging fiercely enough before, 
became positively contagious. There is not the slightest 
doubt that there were spies in Paris, but I feel perfectly cer- 
tain that they were not prowling about the streets, and that 
to have caught them one would have had to look among the 
personnel of the ministries. For a foreigner, unless he spoke 
French without the slightest accent, to have accepted sucii 
a mission, would have been akin to madness ; and there were 
and are still few foreigners, how^ever well they may know 
French, who do not betray their origin now and then by im- 
perfect pronunciation. Besides, there was nothing to spy in 
the streets ; nevertheless, the spy mania, as I have already 
said, had reached an acute crisis. The majority of the Na- 
tional Guard seemed to have no other occupation than to 
look for spies. A poor Spanish priest was arrested because 
he had been three times in the same afternoon to the cobbler 
for the only serviceable i)air of shoes he possessed. Woe to 
the man or woman who was ill-advised enough to take out 
his pocket-book in the streets. If you happened to be of 
studious habits, or merely inclined to sit up late, the lights 
peeping through the carelessly drawn curtains exposed you 
to a sudden visit from half a dozen ill-mannered, swaggering 
National Guards, your concierge was called out of his bed, 
while you were taken to the nearest commissary of police to 
explain ; or, what was worse still, to the nearest military post, 
where the lieutenant in command made it a point to be alto- 
gether soldier-like — according to his ideas, i.e. brutal, rude, 
disgustingly familiar. You might get an apology from the 
police-official for having been disturbed and dragged through 
the streets for no earthly reason ; the quasi-military man 
would have considered it beneath his dignity to offer one. 

Of course, every now and then, one happened to meet 
with a gentleman who was only too anxious to atone for the 
imbecile " goings-on " ' of his men, and I w^as fortunate 
enough to do so one night. It was on the 20th of Septem- 
ber, when the feelings of the Parisians had already been em- 
bittered by their first and not very creditable defeat under 
their own walls. I do not suppose there were more than a 
score of Englishmen in Paris, besides the Irishmen engaged 
in salting beef at the slaughter-house of La Villette, when, 



THE SPY MANIA. 425 

but for that gentleman, I should have been in a sore strait. 
Among the English, there was a groom who, at the time of 
the general exodus, was so dangerously ill that the doctor 
absolutely forbade his removal, even to a hospital. The case 
had been brought under my notice, and as the poor fellow 
was very respectable and had been hard-working, as he had 
a wife and a young family besides, we not only did all we 
could for him, but I went to see him personally two or three 
times to cheer him up a bit. He was on the mend, but 
slowly, very slowly. He lived in one of the side streets of 
the Avenue de Clichy, and had lived there a good while, and 
the concierge of the house had her mind perfectly at rest 
with regard to his nationality, albeit that the fact of being 
an Englishman was not always a sufficient guarantee against 
the suspicion of being a spy on the part of the lower classes. 
Moreover, they would not always take the fact for granted ; 
they were unable to distinguish an English from a German 
or any other accent, and, with them, to be a foreigner was 
necessarily to be a German, and a German could not be any- 
thing but a spy. However, in this instance, I felt no anxiety 
for my protege. 

Unfortunately, a few days before the closing of Paris, the 
concierge herself fell ill, and another one took her place. 
The successor was a man, and not by any means a pleasant 
man. There was a scowl on his face, as, in answer to his 
summons, I told him whither I was going ; and he cast a 
suspicious look at a box I was carrying under my arm, which 
happened to contain nothing more formidable than a surgical 
appliance. I took no notice, however, and mounted the 
stairs. 

My visit may have lasted between twenty minutes and 
half an hour. When I came out, a considerable crowd had 
assembled on the footway and in the road, and a dozen Na- 
tional Guards were ranged in a semicircle in front of the 
door. 

The first cry that greeted me was " Le voila," and then a 
corporal advanced. " Your name, citizen," he said, in a hec- 
toring tone, "and what brings you to this house?" I kept 
very cool, and told him that I would neither give him my 
name nor an explanation of my visit, but that if he would 
take me to his lieutenant or captain, I should be pleased to 
give both to the latter. But he would not be satisfied. 
" Where is the box you had in your hand ? Avhat did it con- 



426 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

tain ? and what have you done with it ? " he insisted. I 
knew that it would be useless to try and enliofhten him, so I 
stuck to my text. Meanwhile the crowd had become very 
excited, so I simply repeated my request to be taken to ti e 
post. 

The crowd would have willingly judged me there and 
then ; that is, strung me up to the nearest lamp-post. If 
they had, not a single one among them would have been 
prosecuted for murder, and by the end of the siege the Brit- 
ish Government would have considered it too late to move 
in the matter; besides, a great many of my countrymen 
would have opined that " it served me right " for remaining 
in Paris, when I might have made myself so comfortable in 
London or elsewhere. So I felt very thankful when the cor- 
poral, though very ungraciously, ordered his men to close 
around me and " to march." I have, since then, been twice 
to the Avenue de Clichy on pleasure bent; that is, to break- 
fast at the celebrated establishment of " le pere Lathuille," 
and the sight of the lamp-posts there sent a cold shudder 
down my back. 

The journey to the military post did not take long. It 
had been established in a former ball-room or music-hall, for 
at the far end of the room there was a stage, representing, as 
far as I can remember, an antique palace. The floor of it 
was littered with straw, on which a score or so of civic warri- 
ors were lazily stretched out ; while others were sitting at the 
small wooden tables, that had, not long ago, borne the festive 
" saladierde petit bleu." Some of the ladles with which that 
decoction had been stirred were still hanging from the walls ; 
for in those neighbourhoods the love of portable property on 
the part of the patrons is quite AYemmickian, and the pro- 
prietors made and make it a rule to throw as little temptation 
as possible in the way of the former. The place looked quite 
sombre, though the gas was alight. There was an intolerable 
smell of damp straw and stale tobacco smoke. 

Part of the crowd succeeded in making their way inside, 
notwithstanding the efforts of the National Guards. My ap- 
pearance caused a certain stir among the occuj^ants of the 
room ; but in a few moments the captain, summoned from 
an apartment at the back, came upon the scene, and my pre- 
liminary trial was proceeded with at once. 

The indictment of the corporal who had arrested me wa*: 
brief and to the point. " This man is a foreigner who pays 



THE INTERIOR OF A GUARD-ROOM. 427 

constant visits to another foreigner, supposed to be sick. 
This evening he arrived with a box under his arm which he 
left with his friend. The concierge has reason to suppose 
that there is something wrong, for he does not believe in the 
man's illness. He is supposed to be poor, and still he and his 
family are living on the fat of the land. My prisoner refused 
to give me his name and address, or an explanation of his 
visit." 

" What have you to say, monsieur ? " asked the captain, a 
man of about thirty-five, evidently belonging to the better 
classes. I found out afterwards that his name was Garnier 
or Garmier, and that he was a cashier in one of the large 
commercial establishments in the Rue St. Martin. He was 
killed in the last sortie of the Parisians. 

It was the first time I had been addressed that evening as 
" monsieur." I simply took a card from my pocket-book and 
gave it to him. " If that is not sufficient, some of your men 
can accompany me home and ascertain for themselves that I 
have not given a false name or address," I said. 

He looked at it for a moment. " It is quite unnecessary. 
I know your name very well, though I have not the honour 
of knowing you personally. I have seen your portrait at my 
relatives' establishment " — he named a celebrated picture- 
dealer in the Rue de la Paix, — " and I ought to have recog- 
nized you at once, for it is a very striking likeness, but it is 
so dark here." Then he turned to his men and to the crowd : 
" I will answer for this gentleman. I wish we had a thou- 
sand or so of foreign spies like him in Paris. France has no 
better friend than he." 

I was almost as much afraid of the captain's praise as I 
had been of the corporal's blame, because the crowd wanted 
to give me an ovation ; seeing which, M. Garmier invited me 
to stay with him a little while, until the latter should have 
dispersed. It was while sitting in his own room that he told 
me the following story. 

" My principal duty, monsieur, seems to consist, not in 
killing Germans, but in preventing perfectly honest French- 
men and foreigners from being killed or maimed. Not later 
than the night before last, three men were brought in. They 
were all very powerful fellows ; there was no doubt abou^. 
their being Frenchmen. They did not take their arrest as a 
matter of course at all, but to every question I put they sim- 
ply sent me to the devil. It was not the behaviour of the 



4,28 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

presumed spy, who, as a rule, is very soft spoken and concili- 
ating until he sees that the game is up, when he becomes in- 
sulting. Still, I reflected that the violence of the three men 
might be a clever bit of acting also, the more that I could- see 
for myself that they were abominably, though not speechless- 
ly, drunk. Their offence was that they had been seen loiter- 
ing in a field very close to the fortifications, with their noses 
almost to the ground. Do what I would, an explanation I 
could not get, and at last the most powerful of the trio made 
a movement as if to draw a knife. With great difficulty a 
dozen of my men succeeded in getting his coat off ; and there, 
between his waistcoat and his shirt, was a murderously look- 
ing blade, a formidable weapon indeed. 

" ' He is a Prussian spy, sure enough ! ' exclaimed the 
roomful of guards. 

" I examined the knife carefully, tried to find the name of 
the maker, and all at once put it to my nose. Then I took 
up a candle and looked more carefully still at the prisoners. 
' They are simply drunk,' I said, ' and the best thing you can 
do is to take them home.' 

" ' But the knife ? ' insisted the sergeant. 

" ' The knife is all right,' I answered, 

" ' I should think it is all right,' said the owner, ' seeing 
that I am cutting provisions all day with it for these con- 
founded Parisians.' 

" But the guards were not satisfied with the explanation. 
They began to surround me. ' That was surely a sign you 
made to the fellow when you lifted the blade to your face, 
captain,' said the sergeant. 

" ' Not at all, friend ; I was simply smelling it. And it 
smelt abominably of onions.' That will give you an idea, 
monsieur, of the life they lead me also. Still, I would ask 
you, as a particular favour, monsieur, not to mention your 
mishap to any one. As you are aware, I am not to blame ; 
but we are in bad odour enough as it is at the Ministry of 
War, and we do not wish to increase our somewhat justified 
reputation for irresponsible rowdyism and lack of discipline." 

I gave him my promise to that effect, and have not men- 
tioned the matter until this day. 



LEX YENTRIS. 429- 



CHAPTER XXIIL 

The siege — The food-supply of Paris — How and what the Parisians eat and 
drink — Bread, meat, and wine — Alcoholism — The waste among the Lon- 
don poor — The French take a lesson from the alien — The L'ish at La Vil- 
lette — A whisper of the horses being doomed — M. Gagne — The various at- 
tempts to introduce horseflesh — The journals deliver their opinions — The 
supply of horseflesh as it stood in '70 — The Academic des Sciences — Gela- 
tine — Kitchen gardens on the balcony — M. Lockroy's experiment — M. 
Pierre Joigneux and the Englishman — If cabbages, why not mushrooms ? 
— There is still a kitchen garden left — Cream cheese from the moon, to be 
fetched by Gambetta — His departure in a balloon — Nadar and Kapoleon 
III. — Carrier-pigeons — An aerial telegraph — Ofl'ers to cross the Prussian 
lines — ^The theatres — A performance at the Cirque National — " Le Roi 
s'amuse," at the Theatre de Montmartre — A dejeuner at Durand's— Weber 
and Beethoven — Long winter nights without fuel or gas — The price of pro- 
visions — The Parisian's good-hiimour — His wit— The greed of the shop- 
keeper — Culinary literature — More's '' Utopia" — An ex-lieutenant of the 
Foreign Legion — He gives us a breakfast — He delivers a lecture on food- 
Joseph, his servant — Milk — The slender resources of the poor — I interview 
an employe of the State Pawnshop — Statistics — Hidden provisions — Bread 
— Prices of provisions — New Year's Day, and New Year's dinners — The 
bombardment— No more bread^The end of the siege. 

I AM not a soldier, nor in the least like one ; hence, I 
have, almost naturally, neglected to note any of the strategic 
and military problems involved in the campaign and the 
siege. But, ignorant as I am in these matters, and notwith- 
standing the repeated failures of General Trochu's troops to 
break through the lines of investment, I feel certain, on the 
other hand, that the Germans would have never taken Paris 
by storming it. Years before, Von Moltke had expressed his 
opinion to that effect in his correspondence, not exactly with 
regard to the French capital, but with regard to any fortified 
centre of more than a hundred thousand inhabitants. Such 
an agglomeration, even if severely left alone, and only shut 
off from the rest of the world, falls by itself. I am giving 
the spirit and not the substance of his words. 

Consequently, there is no need to say, that, to the mere 
social observer, the problems raised by the food-supjoly were 
perhaps the most interesting. Even under normal condi- 



430 AN ENGLISHMAN IN FARIS. 

tions, the average Parisian in his method of feeding is worth 
studying ; he is sujDposed to be one of the most abstemious 
creatures on the civilized globe. And yet, I do not think 
that he consumes less alcohol than the average Englishman 
or German. The Frenchman's alcohol is more diluted ; that 
is all. A drunken woman is a very rare sight, either in Paris 
or in the provinces ; nevertheless, there is, probably, not one 
in a thousand women among the lower classes who drinks 
less than her half a bottle of wine per day ; while ladies of 
high degree generally partake of one if not two glasses of 
chartreuse with their coffee, after each of the two principal 
meals. Un grog Americain is as often ordered for the lady 
as for the gentleman, during the evening visits to the cafe. 
I am speaking of gentlewomen by birth and education, and 
of the spouses of the well-to-do men, not of the members of 
the demi-monde and of those below them. 

So far, the question of drink, which, after my visit to 
the wine-depots at Bercy, assumed an altogether different 
aspect to my mind. I began to wonder whether the plethora 
of wine would not do as much harm as the expected scarcity 
of food. My fears were not groundless. 

Frenchmen, especially Parisians, not only eat a great 
quantity of bread, but they are very particular as to its qual- 
ity. I have a note showing that, during the years 1868-G9, 
the consumption per head for every man, woman, and child 
amounted to a little more than an English pound per day, 
and that very little of this was of " second quality," though 
the latter was as good as that sold at many a London baker's 
as first. I tasted it myself, because the municipality had 
made a great point of introducing it to the lower classes at 
twopence per quartern less than the first quality. Neverthe- 
less, the French workman would have none of it.* 

Even in the humblest restaurants, the bread supplied to 
customers is of a superior quality ; the ordinary household 
bread (pain de menage) is only to be had by specially asking 
for it ; the roll with the caf e-au-lait in the morning is an 
institution except with the very poor. 

As for meat, I have an idea, in spite of all the doubts 
thrown uj)on the question by English writers, that the Pa- 



* Goethe, in his journey throuo-h France, noticed that the peasants who 
drove his carriage invariably refused to eat the soldiers' bread, which he found 
to his taste. — Editor. 



ENGLISH AND FRENCH COOKING. 43I 

risian workman in 1870 consumed as much as his London 
fellow. The fact of the former having two square meals a 
day instead of one, is not sufficiently taken into account by 
the casual observer. There are few English artisans whose 
supper, except on Sundays, consists of anything more sub- 
stantial than bread and cheese. The Frenchman eats meat 
at twelve a.m. and at six p.m. The nourishment contained 
in the scraj)s, the bones, etc., is generally lost to the English- 
man : not a particle of it is wasted in France. Be that as 
it may, the statistics for 1858 show a consumption of close 
upon eight ounces (English) of fresh meat per day for every 
head of the population. Be it remembered that these sta- 
tistics are absolutely correct, because a town-due of over a 
halfpenny per English pound is paid on the meat leaving 
the public slaughter-houses, and killed meat is taxed simi- 
larly at the city gates. Private slaughter-houses there are 
virtually none. 

Allowing for all this, it will be seen that Paris was not 
much better off than other capitals would have been if 
threatened with a siege, except, perhaps, for the ingenuity of 
even the humblest French housewife in making much out of 
little by means of vegetables, fruit, and cunningly prepared 
sauces, for which, nevertheless, butter, milk, lard, etc., were 
wanted, which commodities were as likely to fail as all other 
things. Nor must one forget to mention the ingenuity dis- 
played in the public slaughter-houses themselves, in utilizing 
every possible scrap of the slaughtered animrJs for human 
food. I had occasion, not very long ago (1883), to go fre- 
quently, and for several weeks running, to one of the poorest 
quarters in London. I often made the journey on foot, for 
I am ashamed to say that, until then, the East End was far 
more unknown to me than many an obscure town in France, 
Italy, Germany, and Spain. The clever remark of a French 
sociologist that " the battle of life is fought below the belt," 
holds especially good with regard to the lower classes. Well, 
I may unhesitatingly say that in no country are the poor left 
in greater ignorance with regard to cheap and nourishing 
food than in England, if I am to judge by London. The 
French, the German, the Italian, the Spanish poor, have a 
dozen inexpensive and succulent dishes of which the Eng- 
lish poor know absolutely nothing ; and still those very 
dishes figure on the tables of the well-to-do, and of fashion- 
able restaurants, as entrees under more or less fantastic names. 



432 AX ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

Is the English working man so utterly devoid of thrift and 
of common sense, is his contempt for the foreigner so great 
as to make him refuse to take a lesson from the latter ? I 
think not. I fancy it will depend much on the manner in 
which the lesson is conveyed. A little less board-school work 
and Sunday-school teaching, fewer Bible classes, and a good 
many practical cooking-classes would probably meet the case. 
The French, though aware of their incontestable supe- 
riority in the way of preparing food, did not disdain to take 
a lesson from the alien. They clearly foresaw the fate in 
store for tlie cattle penned in the squares and public gardens, 
if compelled to remain there under existing conditions, and 
with the inclement season close at hand ; consequently, the 
authorities enlisted the services of Mr. Wilson, an Irish gen- 
tleman who had been residing in Paris for a number of years, 
and whose experience in the salted-provision trade seemed to 
them very likely to yield most satisfactory results. Up till 
then, only thirty head of cattle had been submitted to his 
process, from that moment the number is considerably in- 
creased, and it becomes apparent that, in a short while, there 
will be few live oxen, sheep, or pigs left in Paris, thougli, as 
yet we are only in the beginning of October. Under Mr. Wil- 
son's able management, half a hundred Irishmen are at work 
for many, many hours a day at the slaughter-house in La 
Villete, whither flock the Parisians, at any rate the privi- 
leged ones, to watch the preliminaries to the regime of salt- 
junk which is staring them in the face. The fodder thus 
economized will go to the horses, although there is a whisper 
in the air that one eminent savant has recommended their 
immediate slaughter and salting also. Of course, such as are 
wanted for military purposes will be exempted from this 
holocaust on the altar of patriotism. M. Gagne, who has 
already provided the Parisians with amusement for years, in 
his capacity as a perpetual candidate for parliamentary hon- 
ours, does not stop at hippophagy ; he seriously proposes an- 
thropophagy. " A humaii being over sixty is neither useful 
nor ornamental," he exclaimed at a public meeting ; " and 
to prove that I mean what I say, I am willing to give myself 
as food to my sublime and suifering townsmen." Poor fel- 
low ! as mad as a March hare, but a man of education and 
with an infinite fund of sympathy for humanity. He was. 
but moderately provided for at the best of times ; his income 
was derived from some property in the provinces, and, as a 



HORSEFLESH. 433 

matter of course, the investment of Paris stopped his sup- 
plies of funds from that quarter. He was of no earthly use 
in the besieged city, but he refused to go. He had a small 
but very valuable collection of family plate, which went bit 
by bit to the Mint, not to feed himself but to feed others, for 
he was never weary of well-doing. He reminded one irre- 
sistibly of Balzac's hero, " le Pere Goriot," parting with his 
treasures to supply his ungrateful daughters, for the Parisians 
were ungrateful to him. Mad as he was, no man in posses- 
sion of all his mental faculties could have been more sub- 
lime. 

Whatever the question of human flesh as food may have 
been to the Parisians, that of horseflesh was by no means 
new to them. Since ^66^ various attempts had been made to 
introduce it on a large scale, but, for once in a way, they were 
logical in their objections to it. " It is all very well," wrote 
a paper, devoted to the improvement of the humbler classes, 
— " it is all very well for a few savants to sit round a well- 
appointed table to feast upon the succulent parts of a young, 
tender, and perfectly healthy horse, especially if the steaks are 
* aux truffes,' and the kidneys stewed in ' Madeira ; ' but that 
3'oung, tender, and perfectly healthy horse would cost more 
than an equally tender, young, and perfectly healthy bullock 
or cow. So, where is the advantage ? In order to obtam 
that advantage, horses only fit for the knacker's yard, not fit 
for human food, would have to be killed, and the hard-work- 
ing artisan with his non-vitiated taste, who does not even 
care for venison or game when it happens to be ' high,' 
w^ould certainly not care for a superannuated charger to be 
set before him. You might just as well ask an unsophisti- 
cated cannibal to feast upon an invalid. The best part of 
' the warrior on the shelf ' is his wooden leg or his wooden 
arm ; the best part of the superannuated charger is his skin 
or his hoof, with or without the shoe ; and no human being, 
whether cannibal or not, can be expected to make a timber- 
yard, a tanner's yard, or an old -iron and rag store of his 
stomach, even to j^lease faddists." 

As a consequence, only two millions of pounds of horse- 
flesh were " produced " during the first three years succeed- 
ing the publication of that article (1866-69) ; 'but it is more 
than doubtful whether a sixteenth part of it was consumed 
as human food — with a knowledge on the part of the con- 
sumers. And during those three years, as if to prove the 
29 



434 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

writer's words, the public were being constantly fortified in 
their dislike with official reports of the seizure of diseased 
horses on their way to the four specially appointed slaughter- 
houses. I remember, that in one week, twenty-four ani- 
mals were thus confiscated by the sanitary inspectors, " the 
flesh of which," added the 3foniteur, " would have probably 
found its way to the tables of the better class Parisians, in 
the shape of Aries, Lorraine, or German sausages. These 
commodities," it went on, " are never offered by the manu- 
facturer to the experienced proprietors of the ham and beef 
shops (charcutiers), but to fruiterers, grocers, vendors of so- 
called dainties, and dealers in preserved provisions." The 
article had the effect of arousing the suspicion of the better 
classes as well as of the poorer. 

The number of " horse-butchers '' had decreased by four 
during the four years 'that had elapsed since their first estab- 
lishment with the Government's sanction, and the remaining 
eighteen were not very prosperous when the siege brought 
the question to the fore once more. The public could not 
aSord to be positively hostile to the scheme, but the assertion 
of the rare advocates of the system, that they were enthu- 
siastic, is altogether beside the truth. They had to make the 
best of a bad game, that was all. It is a very curious, but 
positive fact, nevertheless, that I have heard Parisians speak 
favourably afterwards of dog's and cat's flesh, even of rats 
baked in a pie ; I have heard them say that, for once in a 
way, even under ordinary circumstances, they would not mind 
partaking of those dishes : I have never heard them exprcvss 
the same good will toward horseflesh. Of course, I am allud- 
ing to those who affected no partisanship, either one way or the 
other. One thing is very certain, though : at the end of the 
siege the sight of a cat or dog was a rarity in Paris, while 
by the official reports there were thirty thousand horses 
left. 

Meanwhile, the Academic de Sciences is attracting notice 
by the reports of its sittings, in which the question of food 
is the only subject discussed. Professor Dorderone reads a 
paper on the utilization of beef and mutton fat; and he 
communicates a new process with regard to kidney fat, 
which, up till then, had withstood the attempts of the most 
celebrated chefs for culinary purposes. He professes to have 
discovered the means of doing away with the unpleasant 
taste and smell which have hitherto militated against its 



FAT VERSUS BUTTER. 435 

use, he undertakes to give it the flavour and aroma of the 
best butter from Brittany and Xormandy. M. Richard, the 
maire of La Villette, attempts similar experiments with ani- 
mal offal, which M. Dumas, the great savant, declares highly 
satisfactory. M. Uiche, one of the superior officials of the 
Mint, transforms bullock's blood into black puddings, w^hich 
are voted superior to those hitherto made with pig's blood. 
The nourishing properties of gelatine are demonstrated in 
an equally scientific manner, and the Academic des Sciences 
gradually becomes the rendezvous of the fair ones of Paris, 
who come to take lessons in the culinary art. 

" Mais, monsieur," says one, " maintenant que nous 
avons du beurre, veuillez nous dire d'ou viendront nos 
epinards ? " * 

"Don't let that trouble you, madame," is the answer; 
" if you will honour us with your presence next week, one 
of our learned friends from the Jardin des Plantes will tell 
you how to grow salads, and perhaps asparagus, on your 
balcony and in front of your windows, in less than a fort- 
night.'"' 

The learned professor is not trying to mystify his charm- 
ing interlocutor ; he honestly believes m what he says : and, 
a week later, when "the friend from the Jardin des Plantes" 
has spoken, there is a wonderful run on all the seed-shops 
near the Chatelet, every one tries to borrow flower-pots from 
his neighbours, and barrow-loads of mould are being trun- 
dled in long lines into Paris. Wherever one goes, the eye 
meets careful housewives bending over wooden boxes on the 
balconies ; M. Philippe Lockroy, the eminent actor and 
dramatist, the father of M. Edouard Lockroy, the future 
minister of the Third Republic, asks seriously why we 
should not revive the hanging gardens of Semiramis, and 
sets the example by converting his fifth floor balcony into a 
market garden, to the discomfiture of his son, who finds his 
erstwhile bedroom converted inio a storehouse for tools and 
less agreeable matter. I may mention that M. Lockroy did 
not abandon his project after a mere fleeting attempt, nor 
wdien the necessity for it had disappeared, but that at the 
hour I write (1883) he has taken a prize for pears grown on 
that same balconv. 



* " Mettre du beurre dans ses epinards," means, figuratively, to increase one's 
comforts. — Editor. 



433 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

The mania spreads, and every one becomes, for the time 
being, a market-gardener in chambers. E\'eii M. Pierre 
Joigneux, the well-known horticulturist, and equally clever 
writer, is bitten with it. That the thing was perfectly feasi- 
ble, was proved subsequently by M. Lockroy, but the latter 
did not imitate the nigger who dug up the potatoes an hour 
after he had planted them, to see if they were growing. 
That thoroughly inexperienced persons should have indulged 
in such wild fancies is perhaps not to be wondered at ; but 
M. Joigneux was not one of these, yet he provided an Eng- 
lishman, who had come to propose the experiment to him, 
with all the necessary funds. " I was perfectly certain that 
I should never see him again," he said afterwards ; but, with 
all due deference, we may take this as a shamefaced denial 
of his credulity. " Contrary to my expectations," M. Joig- 
neux went on, when he told us the tale a few nights after- 
wards at the Cafe de la Paix — he lived in the Rue du 4 Sep- 
tembre, — " my Englishman did come back, accompanied by 
a porter who carried the requisite material. I did not inter- 
fere with him in the least, but merely watched him. I knew 
that in England they did produce ' greenstuif ' in that way ; 
though I was also aware of the difference between a few 
blades and a serious crop." 

Others, more ingenious still, began to argue that if it was 
possible to produce vegetables in a fortnight by means of 
light and a few handfuls of mould, it could not be difficult 
to produce mushrooms with a much thicker layer of mould 
and in the darkness of a cellar. 

Fortunately there is, as yet, a very decent kitchen -garden 
to fall back upon. It lies between the fortifications and the 
forts ; it has been somewhat pillaged at first, but the authori- 
ties have organized several companies of labourers from among 
those whom they have not been able to provide with arms, 
and those who do not dig or delve keep watch against depre- 
dation. They have a very simple uniform — a black kepi with 
crimson piping, and a crimson belt round their waists. They 
are exposed to a certain danger, for every now and then a 
stray German bullet lays one of them low, but, upon the 
whole, their lot is not a hard one. 

" We have still nearly everything we want," writes a face- 
tious journalist ; " and now that good and obliging fellow, 
Gambetta, is going to fetch us some cream cheese from the 
moon for our dessert." 



DEPARTURE OF GAMBETTA. 437 

In fact, during the last few da3^s, we have been informed 
of the Minister of the Interior's impending departure for 
Tours by balloon on the 7th of October, and by twelve 
o'clock on that day the little Place St. Pierre, right on the 
heights of Montmartre, is simply black with people. " The 
gre<(t statesman," the "hero who is to rouse the provinces to 
utiheard-of eiforts for the deliverance of the sacred soil of 
France from the polluting presence of the «Teutonic barba- 
rian," has not arrived yet when I edge my way through the 
crowd, accompanied by an officer on General Yinoy's staff, 
Avho IS a near relative of mine. With the recollection of my 
adventure m the Avenue de Clichy fresh upon me, I would 
not have ventured to come, by myself. There is a military 
post on the Place St. Pierre, and I am wondering whether it 
will turn out to pay honours to " the great statesman ; " and 
whether Nadar, the famous Nadar, whom I can see towering 
above the crowd, and giving instructions, will treat Gam- 
bet^a with the same scant courtesy he once treated Louis- 
Napoleon, when the latter went to see the ascent of his bal- 
loon, " Le Geant," from the Champ-de-Mars. Nadar's be- 
haviour on that occasion reminds one of Elizabeth's with the 
wife of Bishop Parker. " ' Madam,' " said the queen, " I 
may not call you, and ' mistress ' I am loth to call you." 
Nadar was too fervent a republican to call Louis-Napoleon 
" Majesty ;" he was too well-bred to insult his guest by ad- 
dressing him as " Monsieur : " so, when he saw the sovereign 
advancing, he backed towards his car, and, before he could 
come up with him, gave orders to "let go." 

I do not know whether Gambetta came in a carriage. It 
did not make its appearance on the Place St. Pierre; he 
probably left it, like meaner mortals, at the foot of the very 
steep hill. The cheering was immense, and he took it as if 
to the manner born. He was accompanied by M. Spuller, 
who was to take the journey with him, and who, even at that 
time, bore a curious likeness to Mr. Spurgeon. M. Spuller did 
not appear to claim any of the cheers for himself, for he kept 
perfectly stolid. Gambetta, on the other hand, bowed re- 
peatedly, at Avhich Nadar grinned. Nadar was always honest, 
if outspoken. He did not seem particularly pleased with 
the business in hand, and was evidently determined to get 
it over as soon as possible. Gambetta was still standing up, 
bowing and waving his hands, when Nadar gave the order 
to " let go " the ropes, and the dictator fell back into the lap 



438 AN ENGLISPIMAN IN PARIS. 

of his companion. The balloon rose rather quickly, and 
about nine that same night Ave had the news that the balloon 
had safely landed in the Department of the Oise, about twelve 
miles from Clermont. 

From that moment, the ascent of a balloon with its car 
containing one or two, sometimes three, wicker cages of car- 
rier-pigeons, becomes a favourite spectacle with the Parisians, 
who would willingly see the departure of a dozen per day. 
For each departure means not only the conveyance of a 
budget of news from the besieged city to the provinces, it 
means the return of the winged messengers with perhaps 
hopeful tidings that the provinces are marching to the rescue. 
I am bound to say, at the same time, that the terrible anxiety 
for such rescue did not arise solely from a wish to escape fur- 
ther physical sufl'erings and privations. Three-fourths of 
the Parisians would have been willing to put up with worse 
for the sake of one terrible defeat inflicted upon the Germans 
by their levies or by those in the provinces. 

But though the gas companies did wonders, fifty-two 
balloons having been inflated by them during the siege, they 
could do no more. Nevertheless, the experiments continue : 
the brothers Goddard have established their head-quarters 
at the Orleans Railway ; MM. Dartois and Yon at the North- 
ern ; Admiral Labrousse,who has already invented an ingen- 
ious gun-carriage, is now busy upon a navigable balloon ; the 
Government grants a subsidy of forty thousand francs to M. 
Dupuy de Lome to assist him in his research ; and at the 
Grande Hotel there is a permanent exhibition of appliances 
for navigating the air under the direction of MM. Horeau 
and Saint- Felix. The public flock to them, and for a mo- 
ment there is the hope that if we ourselves cannot come and 
go as free as birds, there will be at least a means of perma- 
nent communication with the outer world that way. M. 
Granier has proposed to make an aerial telegraph without the 
support of poles. The wire is to be enclosed in a gutta- 
percha tube filled with hydrogen gas, which will enable it to 
keep its altitude a thousand or fifteen hundred meters above 
the earth. The cable is to be paid out by balloons. M. Gaston 
Tissandier, a well-know^n authority in such matters, looks fav- 
ourably upon the experiment ; but, alas, it comes to nothing, 
and we have to fall back upon less ingenious, more common- 
place means. 

In other words, we are ofl'ering tempting fees to plucky 



POSTAL EXPERIMENTS. 439 

individuals who will attempt to cross the Prussian lines. 
Several do make the attempt, and for a week or so the news- 
papers and the walls swarm with advertisements of a pri- 
vate firm who will forward and receive despatches at the 
rate of ten francs per letter. A good many messengers de- 
part ; a good many return almost at once, finding the task 
impossible; those that do not return have presumably been 
shot by the Prussians, for not a single one reached his des- 
tination. 

Then we begin to turn our thoughts to the sheep-dog as 
a carrier of messengers, or rather to the smuggler's dog, 
thousands of which are known to exist on the Belgian and 
Swiss frontiers. The postal authorities go even so far as to 
promise two hundred francs for every batch of despatches 
if delivered within twenty-four hours of the animal's de- 
parture from his starting-place, and fifty francs less for 
every twenty-four hours' delay ; but the animals fall a prey 
to the Prussian sentries, not one of them succeeds in reach- 
ing the French outposts. The carrier-pigeon is all we have 
left. 

Still, we are not discouraged ; and in less than a month 
after the investment, the Parisians begin to clamour for their 
favourite amusement — the theatre. There are, of course, 
many divergencies of opinion with regard to the fitness of 
the measure, and we get some capital articles on the subject, 
studded with witty sentences and relieved by historical anec- 
dotes, showing that, whatever they may not know, French 
journalists have an inexhaustible fund of parallels when it 
becomes a question of the playhouse. " In '92 the Lillois 
w^ent peacefully to the theatre wdiile the shells were pouring 
into the devoted city. Why should we be less courageous 
and less cheerful than they?" writes one. " Xero was fid- 
dling while Rome was burning," writes another, "but Paris 
is not on fire yet ; and, if it were, the Nero who might be 
blamed for the catastrophe is at Wilhelmshohe, where, we 
may be sure, he will not eat a mouthful less for our pangs of 
hunger. If he does not fiddle, it is because, like his famous 
uncle, he has no ear for music." 

" Whatever may happen," writes M. Francisque Sarcey in 
the Gaulois, " art should be considered superior to all things ; 
the theatre is not a more unseemly pleasure under the cir- 
cumstances than the perusal of a good book ; and it is just 
in the darkest and saddest hours ofliis life that a man needs 



4:4:0 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

a diversion which will, for a little while, at least, prevent him 
from brooding upon his sufferings." 

To which " Thomas Grimm," of Le Petit Journal, who 
is on the opposite side, replies : " If I may be allowed to in- 
tervene in so grave a question, I have no hesitation in say- 
ing that the time for singing and amusing ourselves has 
not arrived. It seems to me very doubtful whether the spec- 
tators would not be constantly thinking of scenes enacted in 
other spots than behind the footlights. And in such moments, 
when they might concentrate the whole of their attention on 
the pleasant fiction enacted before them, the sound of the 
cannon thundering in the distance would more than once re- 
call them to the reality." 

The ice was virtually broken, and on Sunday, the 23rd 
of October, the Cirque National opened its doors for a con- 
cert. During the last five years, as my readers will perceive 
by the almost involuntary break in these notes, I had not 
been so assiduous a frequenter of the theatre and the concert 
hall as I used to be, and though I was during the siege over- 
burdened with business, on the nature of which I need not 
dwell here, I felt that I wanted some amusement. The even- 
ings were becoming chilly, one of my cherished companions 
was doing his duty with General Yinoy, and, though I had 
practically unlimited means at my command for my necessi- 
ties, and am by no means sparing of money at any time, I 
grudged the price of fuel. As yet, wood only cost six francs 
the hundredweight, but it was such Avood ! If the ancient 
proverb-coiner had been seated in front of the hearth in 
which it was trying to burn, he might have hesitated to 
write that " there is no smoke without a fire." The friendly 
chats by the fireside, which I had enjoyed for many years, 
had almost entirely ceased. Nearly all my familiars were 
*'on duty," and the few hours they could snatch were either 
spent in bed, to rest from the fatigue and discomforts of the 
night, or else at the cafes aiul restaurants, wdiere the news, 
mostly of an anecdotal kind, was circulating freely. In fact, 
the cafes and restaurants, as long as there was fuel and light, 
were more amusing during the siege than I had known them 
to be at any time. Perhaps the most amusing feature of 
these nightly gatherings was the presentation of the bill 
after dinner. The prices charged at the Cafe de Paris in its 
palmiest days were child's play compared to the actual ones. 
I have preserved the note of a breakfast for two at Durand's. 



AMUSEMENTS. 4il 

frs. 
Hors d'CEuvres (Radishes and Sausage) . . .10 

Entree (Navarin aux Pommes) 18 

Filet de Boeuf aux Champignons 24 

Omelette Sucree (3 oeufs) 12 

Cafe 1 

1 Bouteille de Macon 6 

Total frs. 71 

The bread and butter were included in the hors-d'oeuvres, 
and I may remark that the entree and the filet de boeuf were 
only for one. Durand's was the cheapest of the five restau- 
rants which still retained their ordinary clientele. Bignon, 
Yoisin, the Cafes de la Paix and Anglais were much dearer. 
The latter gave its patrons white bread as late as the IGth of 
December. 

I made up my mind, then, to go to that concert at the 
Cirque National, and to as many of the entertainments as 
might be offered. I have rarely seen such a crowd outside a 
theatre ; and I doubt whether the fact of the performance 
being for a charitable purpose had much to do with it, be- 
cause, if so, those who were denied admission might have 
handed their money at the box-office, but they did not, they 
only gave the reverse of their blessing. If charity it was, it 
did not want to end at home that afternoon. 

The entertainment began with a charity sermon by the 
Abbe Duquesnay, a hardworking priest in one of the thickly 
populated quarters of Paris. I would willingly give another 
ten francs to hear a similar sermon. I am positive that the 
Abbe had taken Laurence Sterne for his model. I have 
never heard anytliing so brilliant in my life. Not the 
slightest attempt at thrusting religion down one's throat. 
A good many quotations on the advantages of well-doing, 
notably that of Shakespeare, admirably translated, probably 
by the speaker himself. Then the following to wind up 
with : " I do not know of a single curmudgeon Avho has ever 
been converted into what I should call ' a genuine alms- 
giver,' by myself, or by my fellow-priests. When he did 
give, he looked upon the gift as a loan to the Lord in virtue 
of that gospel precept which you all know. Now, my good 
friends, allow me to give you my view of that sentence : God 
is just, and no doubt He will repay the loan with interest, 
but after He has settled the account. He will indict the lender 
before the Highest tribunal for usury. Consequently, if you 



41:2 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

have an idea of placing your money in that way with God as 
a security, you had bettor keep it in your purses." 

After this, the orchestra, nine-tenths of whose members 
are in uniform, performs the overture to " La Muette de 
Portici" (Masaniello) ; Pasdeloup conducting. Pasdeloup 
is a naturalized German, whose real name is Wolfgang, but, 
in this instance, the public do not seem to mind it ; nor is 
there any protest against the names of two other Germans 
on the programme, Weber's and Beethoven's. On the con- 
trary, the latter's composition is frantically encored. I be- 
lieve it is the symphony in Minoi\ for it has been wedded 
to Victor Hugo's words, and it is Madame Ugalde who sings 
the stirring hymn " Patria." 

There is a story connected with this hymn, which is not 
generally known. I give it as it was told to me a day or so 
afterwards by Auber, who had it from the lips of Joseph 
Dartigues, who, at the time of its occurrence, was the musical 
critic of the Journal des Debats. 

H;igo was very young then, and one night he went to the 
Theatre de Madame, which has since become the Gymnase. 
The piece was one of Scribe's — " La Cliatte metamorphosee 
en Femme;" and Jenny Vertpre, whom our grandfathers 
applauded at the St. James Theatre in the thirties, was to 
play the principal part. Still, our poet was not particularly 
struck with the plot, dialogue, or lyrics ; but, all at once, he 
sat upright in his seat, at the strains of a " Hindoo invoca- 
tion." When the music ceased, Hugo left the house, hum- 
ming the notes to himself He was very fond of music, 
though he could never reconcile himself to have his dramas 
appropriated by the librettists, and gave his consent but very 
reluctantly. Next morning, he met Dartigues on the Boule- 
vard des Italiens, then the Boulevard de Gand. He told him 
what he had heard, and recommended the critic to go and 
judge for himself. " It is so utterly different from the idiotic 
stuff one generally hears." Dartigues acted upon the recom- 
mendation, A few days later, they met once more. " Did 
you go and hear that music, at the Theatre de Madame ? " 
asked Hugo. 

" Yes," was the reply. " I am not surprised at your lik- 
ing it ; it is Beethoven's." 

O.irious to relate, Hugo had not as much as heard the 
name of the great German composer. The acquaintance with 
classical music was very limited in the France of those days. 



THE THEATRES. 443 

But Hugo never forgot the symphony, and, later on, in his 
exile, he wrote the words I had just heard. 

The impulse has been given, and from that moment the 
walls of Paris display as many bills of theatrical and musical 
entertainments as if the Germans were not at the gates. I 
go to nearly all, and, to my great regret, hear ^ great many 
actors and actresses who have received favours and honours 
at the hand of Louis-Napoleon vie with one another in cast- 
ing obloquy upon him and his reign. One of the few honour- 
able exceptions is M. Got, who, being invited to recite Hugo's 
" Chatiments," emphatically refuses " to kick a man when he 
is down." 

At the Theatre-Fran9ais, there is a special box — the 
erstwhile Imperial box — for the convalescents, who are being 
tended in the theatre itself. 

But though I went to hear Melchisedec and Taillade, 
Caron and Berthelier, there is one j)erformance that stands 
out vividly from the rest in my memorv. It was a representa- 
tion of Hugo's "Le Roi s'amuse " ('' the Fool's Revenge "), 
at the theatre at Montmartre. Under ordinary circumstances, 
I should probably not have gone so far afield to see any piece, 
not even that which was reputed to be the masterpiece of 
Victor Hugo, but, in this instance, the temptation was too 
great. The play had only been performed in Paris once — on 
the 22nd of November, 1832 ; next day it was suspended by 
order of the Government. Alexandre Dumas the elder, 
Theophile Gautier, Nestor Roqueplan, all of whom wei3 
present on that memorable night, had spoken to me of its 
beauties. I had often promised myself to read it, and had 
never done so. If I had, I should probably not have gone to 
Montmartre that night, lest my illusions should be disturbed. 
The performance was intended as a tribute to the genius of 
the poet, but also as an act of defiance on the part of the 
young Republic to the preceding regimes ; though why it Avas 
not revived during the Second Republic I have never been 
able to make out clearly. 

My companion and I toiled up the steep Rue des Martyrs, 
and it was evident to us, when we got to the Place du Theatre, 
that something unusual was going on, for the little -square 
was absolutely black with people. We managed, however, to 
elbow our way through, and to get two stalls. The house 
was dimly lighted by gas, the deficiency made up, as far I 
could see, by lamps in the auditorium, by candles on the 



444 ^N ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

stage. There was not an empty seat anywhere. The over- 
ture, consisting of snatches from " Eigoletto," was received 
with deafening applause, and then the curtain rose upon the 
magnificent hall in the Louvre of Fran9ois I., with the king 
surrounded by his courtiers and his favourites. By his side 
hobbled Trilioulet, his evil genius, as Hugo has represented 
him. 

My disappointment was great. I had come to admire, 
not expecting magnificent scenery, gorgeous costumes, or 
transcendent acting, but a spirit of reverence for the im- 
mortal creation of a great poet. At that time I was not 
sufficiently familiar with provincial art in England to be able 
to picture a performance of Shakespeare except under con- 
ditions such as prevail in the best of London theatres. I had 
read accounts, however, of strolling companies and their 
doings, but I doubt whether the humblest would have been 
guilty of such utter iconoclasm in the spirit as well as in the 
letter as I witnessed that night. It was not comic, it was 
absolutely painful. It was not the glazed calico doing duty 
for brocade, that made me wince ; it was not the anti-macassar 
replacing lace that made me gasp for breath : it was the 
miserable failure of those behind the footlights, as well as of 
those in front, to grasp the meaning of the simplest line. 
They had been told that this play was an indictment, not 
against a libertine king, but against generations and genera- 
tions of rulers to whom debauch was as the air they breathed. 
And, in order to make the lesson more striking. Saint- V^allier 
was represented as an old dotard, Triboulet as a pander, the 
king as an amorous Bill Sykes, and Triboulet's daughter as 
an hysterical young woman who virtually gloried in her dis- 
honour. I had seen " Orphee aux Enfers," " La Belle Helene," 
and " La Grande Duchesse; " I had heard Schneider at her 
best and at her worst ; I had heard women of birth and breed- 
ing titter, and gentlemen roar, at allusions which would make 
a London coalheaver blush ; — I had never seen anything so 
downright degrading as this performance. And when, at 
last, the dramatis j^ersoncB gathered round a bust of Hippoc- 
rates — the best substitute for one of Victor Hugo they could 
find, — and one of them recited " Les Chatiments," Ileft, hop- 
ing that I should never see such an exhibition again. It was 
one of the first deliberately planned lessons in " king-hatred " 
I had heard. The disciples looked to me very promising, and 
the Commune, when it came, was not such a surprise to me, 



"L'ESPRIT NE PERD JAMAIS SES DROITS." 445 

after all. Before then, I had come to the conclusion that 
the barbarians outside the gates of Paris were less to be 
feared than those inside — the former, at any rate, believed in 
a chief ; the motto of the others was, " Ni Dieu, ni maitre." 

Meanwhile, the long winter nights have come. The stock 
of gas is pretty well exhausted, or tantamount to it ; wood, 
similar to that I have described already, has risen to seven 
francs fifty centimes the hundredweight. Beef and mutton 
have entirely disappeared from the butchers' stalls. Rats 
are beginning to be sold at one franc apiece, and eggs cost 
thirty francs a dozen. Butter has risen to fifty francs the 
half-kilogramme (about seventeen ozs., English). Carrots 
and potatoes fetch, the first, forty francs, the second, twenty 
francs, the peck (English). I am being told that milk is still 
to be had, but 1 have neither tasted nor seen any for ten days. 
Personally, I do not feel the want of it ; but in my visits to 
some of the poor in my neighbourhood I am confronted by 
the fact of little ones, between two and three 3'ears of age, 
being fed on bread soaked in wine, and suffering from vari- 
ous ailments in consequence. 

I am pursuing some inquiries at the various mairies, and 
find that the death-rate for October has reached nearlv three 
thousand above the corresponding month of the previous 
year. I am furthermore told that not a third of this increase 
is due to the direct results of the siege — that is, to death on 
the battle-field, or resulting from wounds received there ; 
typhus and low fever, anaemia, etc., are beginning to ravage 
the inhabitants. Worse than all, the authorities'have made 
a mistake with regard to the influx of strangers. The seven tv- 
five thousand aliens and Parisians who have left at the be- 
ginning of the siege have been replaced by three times that 
number, so that Paris has virtually one hundred and fifty 
thousand more mouths to feed than it counted upon. " All 
the women, children, and old men," says one of my inform- 
ants, " ought to have been removed to some provincial centre ; 
it would have cost Jio more, and would have left those who 
remained free for a more energetic defence. And you will 
scarcely believe it, monsieur, but here is the register to prove 
it ; there have been nearly four hundred marriages celebrated 
during the past month. It looks to me like tying the Gordian 
knot with a vengeance." 

One thing I cannot help remarking amidst all this suffer- 
ing ; the Parisian never ceases to be witty. Among my pen- 



44:6 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

sioners there was the wife of a hard-working, frugal uphol- 
sterer, whose trade was absolutely at a standstill. He was 
doing his duty on the fortifications ; she was keeping the 
home together on the meagre pittance allowed to her hus- 
band by the Government, and the rations doled out to her 
every morning. The youngest of her three children was 
barely four weeks old. One morning, to my great surprise, I 
found two infants in her lap. " C'est comme 9a, monsieur," 
she said, with a wan smile. " Andre found it on a doorstep 
in the Rue Mogador, and he brought it home, saying, ' It 
won't make much difference ; Nature laid the table for two 
infants.' " 

The Parisian is a born lounger. Balzac had said, " Flaner 
est une science, c'est la gastronomic de I'oeil." Seeing that it is 
the only gastronomy they can enjoy under the circumstances, 
the Parisians take to it with a vengeance during those months 
of October and November, and their favourite halting-places 
are the rare provision-shops that have still a fowl, or a goose, 
or a pigeon in their windows. The sight of a turkey causes 
an obstruction, and the would-be purchaser of a rabbit is 
mobbed like the winner of a great prize in the lottery. Nine 
times out of ten the negotiations do not go beyond the pre- 
liminary stage of inquiring the price, because vendors are 
obstinate, though polite. 

" How much for the rabbit ? " says the supposed Nabob, 
for the very fact of inquiring implies wealth. 

" Forty-five francs, monsieur." 

" You are joking. Forty-five francs ! It's simply ridicu- 
lous," protests the other one. 

" I am not joking, monsieur ; and I cannot take a far- 
thing less." 

The would-be diner goes away; but he has scarcely gone 
a few steps, when the dealer calls him back. " Listen, mon- 
sieur," he cries. 

Hope revives in the other's breast. His fancy conjures 
up a savoury rabbit-stew, and he leaps rather than walks the 
distance that separates him from the stall. 

" Ventre affame a des oreilles pour sur," says a bystander.* 

" Well, how much are you going to take off?" 

" I am not going to take off a penny, but I thought I 
might tell you that this rabbit plays the drum." 

* The proverb is, " Ventre aflame n'a pas d'oreilles." — Editor. 



THE PRAISE OF GELATINE. 447 

Some of the jokes, though, were uot equally innoceut, and 
revealed a callousness on the part of the perpetrators which 
it is not pleasant to have to record. True, they did not affect 
the very poor, whose poverty was, as it were, a guarantee 
against them ; but it is a moot point whether the well-to-do 
should be shamelessly robbed by the well-to-do tradesmen for 
no other reason than to increase the latter's hoard. Greed, 
that abominable feature in the character of the French mid- 
dle-classes, showed itself again and again under circumstances 
which ought to have suspended its manifestations for the time 
being. 

1 have already noted that one member of the Academic 
des Sciences had insisted upon the benefits to be derived from 
the extraction of gelatine from bones. A great number of 
equally learned men simply scouted the idea as preposterous, 
notably Dr. Gannal, the well-known authority on embalm- 
ing. His opposition went so far as to prompt hmi to submit 
his family and himself to the " ordeal," as he called it. At 
the end of a week, all of them were reduced to mere skele- 
tons ; and then, but then only, Dr. Gannal sent for his learned 
colleagues to attest the effects. The drowning man will pro- 
verbially cling to a straw ; consequently, some Parisians took 
to gelatine, undeterred by the clever lampoons, one of which 
I quote : 

" L'inventeiir de la gelatine, 

A la chair preferant les os, 

Veut desormais que chacun dine 

Avec un jeu of dominos." 

They, however, did so with their eyes open, and as a last re- 
source : not so those Avho were imposed upon, and induced 
to part with their money for cleverly imitated calves' heads, 
which, as a matter of course, merely left a gluish substance 
at the bottom of the saucepan, to the indignation of anxious 
housewives and irate cooks, one of whom took her revenge 
one day by clapping the saucepan and its contents on the 
head of the fraudulent dealer, and, while the latter was in an 
utterly defenceless state, triumphantly stalking away with 
two very respectable fowls. The shopkeeper had the impu- 
dence to seek redress in a court of law. The judge would 
not so much as listen to him. 

Another curious feature of the siege was the sudden pas- 
sion developed by cooks for what I must be permitted to call 
culinary literature. As a rule, the French cordon-bleu, and 



44-8 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

even her less accomjDlished sisters, do not go for their recipes 
to cookery-books ; theirs is knowledge gained from actual 
experience : but at that period such works as, " Le Livre 
de Cuisine de Mademoiselle Marguerite," " La (^uisiniere 
Pratique," etc., were to be found on every kitchen table. 
The cooks had simply taken to them in despair, not believing 
a single word of their contents, but on the chance of finding 
a hint that might lend itself to the provisions placed at their 
disposal. I refrain from giving their criticisms on the au- 
thors : the forcibleness of their language could only be done 
justice to by such masters of realism as M. Zola. I have 
spoken before now of the uniform good temper of the Paris- 
ians under the most trying circumstances ; I beg to append 
a rider, excluding cooks, but especially female ones. " C'est 
comme si on essayait d'enseigner le patinage a la femme aux 
jambes de bois du boulevard," said the ministering angel to 
one of my bachelor friends. One day, to my great surprise, 
on calling on him I found him reading. He was not much 
given to poring over books, though his education had been a 
very good one. 

" What are you doing ? " I asked. 

" I am reading More's ' Utopia,' " he said, puting down 
the volume. 

" What do you mean ? " I remarked, pointing to the cover, 
displaying a young woman bending over stew-pans. 

" This is More's ' Utopia,' to me at present. It speaks of 
things which will never be realized; supreme de volaille, 
tournedos a la poivrade, and so forth. The book wants an- 
other chapter," he went one, " a chapter treating of the food 
of besieged cities. The Dutch might have written it cent- 
uries ago : at Leyden they were on the point of eating their 
left arms, while defending themselves with their right ; they 
could have told us how to stew the former. If one could add 
a chapter to that effect, the book might go through a hun- 
dred new editions, and the writer might make a fortune. It 
would not do him much good, for he would be expected to 
live up to his precepts, and not touch a morsel of that beauti- 
ful kangaroo or elephant I saw yesterday on the Boulevard 
Haussmann." 

At that moment a mutual acquaintance came in. He had 
been a lieutenant in the Foreign Legion, and lost his right 
foot before Constantine. Noticing our host's doleful looks, 
he inquired the cause, and we got another spoken essay on 



A CURIOUS DINNER. 449 

the difficulties of the situation as connected with the food 
supply. I may add that, wherever a few men w^ere gathered 
together, this became invariably the absorbing topic of con- 
versation. 

The ex-lieutenant laughed outright. " You are altogether 
labouring under a mistake ; there is plenty of food of a kind 
left, though I admit with you that the Parisian does not know 
how to prepare it." 

" Will you teach them ? " was the query. 

" I will not, because they would simply sneer at me. Feed- 
ing is simply a matter of prejudice ; and, to prove it to you, 
I will give you a breakfast to-morrow morning which you 
will appreciate. But I am not going to tell you of what it 
consists, nor will I do so until two days after the entertain- 
ment." 

We accepted the invitation, though I must confess that I 
was not eager about it. Nevertheless, next day, about one, 
we were seated at the hospitable board of our ex-lieutenant, 
who, three weeks before, had dismissed his female servant 
and was waited upon by an old trooper, with one arm. 
Though perfectly respectful, Joseph received us with a broad 
grin, which, as the repast progressed, was contracted into a 
proud smile. He had evidently co-operated with his master 
in the concoction of the dishes, all of which, I am bound to 
say, were very savoury. In fact, I was like that new tenant 
of the house haunted by a laughing ghost. But for the 
knowledge that there was something uncanny about it, I 
would have been intensely gratified and amused. Our host 
told us, with great glee, that Joseph had been up since a 
quarter-past four that morning ; and that before five he was 
at the Halles. As we could distinctly taste the onions in the 
stew that served as an entree, and as the potatoes round the 
next dish were visible to the naked eye, we concluded that 
the old trooper had got up so early to buy vegetables, and 
were correspondingly grateful. There was no mystery what- 
soever about the fish, and about the entremets. The first 
was dry cod — but with a sauce such as I had never tasted be- 
fore or have since. The latter was a delicious dish of sweet 
macaroni, fit to set before a prince. I repeat, but for my 
knowledge that there was something uncanny about that 
meal, I would have asked permission to come every day. Yet 
I felt almost equally convinced that, with regard to one dish, 
we had been doubly mystified — that they were larks, which 
30 



450 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

our host had managed to procure somehow, though I missed 
the bones. 

True to his word, our Amphitryon revealed the real in- 
gredients of the menu forty-eight hours after. The entree 
had been composed of very small mice — field-mice, I think 
we call them in England ; the second dish was rat. Not a 
single ounce of butter or lard had been used in the sauces or 
for the macaroni. The dried cod was still plentiful enough 
to be had at any grocer's or salted provision shop. Instead 
of butter, Joseph used horse-marrow. The horse-butchers 
sold the bones ridiculously cheap, not having the slightest 
idea what to do with them. The mice, Joseph caught round 
about the fortifications, whither he went almost every day. 
The rats he caught in the cellarage of the Halles. He had a 
cousin there in a large way of business, and access to the un- 
derground part of the market was never refused to him. 

" From what you have tasted at -y rooms," concluded 
the ex-lieutenant, " you will easily see that our vaunted su- 
periority as cooks is so much humbug. The dish of cod I 
gave you, and which you 'ked so much, may be seen on the 
table of the poorest household in Holland and Flanders at 
least once, sometimes twice, a " eek, especially in North-Bra- 
bant, Avhere the good Catholics scarcely ever eat anything else 
on Fridays. The sauce, which they call a mustard-sauce, 
would naturally be better if .jade with butter, but you could 
not taste the difference if the cook takes care to sprinkle a 
little saffron in her fat or marrow. Saffron is a great thing 
in cooking, and still our best chefs know little or nothing 
about it. But for the saffron, you would have detected a 
slight odour of musk- in the entree you took to be larks. You 
may almost disguise anything with saffron, except dog's-flesh. 
Listen to what I tell you, and in a month or so, perhaps be- 
fore, you'll admit the truth of my Avords. The moment 
horseflesh fails, the Parisians will fall back upon dogs, turn- 
ing up their noses at cats and rats, though both are a thou- 
sand times superior to the latter. In saying this, I am virtu- 
ally libelling the cat and the rat; for 'the friend of man,' be 
he cooked in ever so grand a way, is always a detestable dish. 
His flesh is oily and flabby ; stew him, fry him, do what you 
will, there is always a flavour of castor oil about him. The 
only way to minimize that flavour, to make him palatable, is 
to salt, or rather to pepper him ; that is, to cut him up in 
slices, and leave them for a fortnight, bestrewing them very 



THE POOR. 451 

liberally with pepper-corns. Then, before ' accommodating ' 
them finally, put them into boiling water for a while, and 
throw the water away. 

" No such compromises are necessary with ' the fauna of 
the tiles,' who, with his larger-sized victim, the rat, has been 
the most misprized and misjudged of all animals, from the 
culinary point of view. Stewed puss is by far more delicious 
than stewed i*abbit. The flesh of the former tastes less pun- 
gent than that of the latter, and is more tender. As for the 
prejudice against cat, well, the Germans have the same pre- 
judice against rabbit, and while I was in the Foreign Legion 
there was a Wurtemberger, a lieutenant, w^ho would not 
touch bunny, but who would devour grimalkin. Those who 
have not tasted couscoussou of cat, prepared according to the 
Arabian recipe — though the Arabs won't touch it — have 
never tasted anything." * 

Our friend said much more, notably with regard to rat 
and horseflesh ; and then he wound up : " But what is the 
good ? Those who might benefit by my advice are not here, 
and, if they were, they would probably scorn it ; I mean the 
very poor. The only item of animal food Avhich cannot be 
adequately replaced by something else yielding as much or 
nearly as much nourishment is milk. But, unless an adult 
be in delicate health or suffering from ailments to the allevi- 
ation and cure of which milk is absolutely necessary, he may 
very well go without it for six months. Not so children. I 
am only showing you that the poor, with their slender re- 
sources — and Heaven knows they are slender enough — might 
do better than they are doing, for cats and rats must still be 
very plentiful, only they won't touch them." 

The reference to the very poor and their slender resources 
recurred more than once that evening, but I knew that the 
authorities were trying to do all they could in the way of 
relieving general and individual distress, and that they were 
admirably seconded by private charity, which not only placed 
comparatively large sums at their disposal, but bestirred itself 
by means of specially appointed committees and visitors. 
The rations of meat (horsemeat) and bread distributed were 
not sufficient. The first had already fallen to forty-five 



* The Arab hushus generally consists of a piece of mutton baked in a paste 
with the vegetables of the season, flavoured with herbs ; and the addition of 
half a dozen hard-boiled eggs. The whole of the flesh is boned. — Editor. 



452 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

grammes per day per head, the second to three hundred and 
fifty grammes ; * they were to fall much lower. Tickets 
were also distributed for set meals, with and without meat. 
There was, furthermore, a distribution of fuel, albeit that 
there was really no more fuel to distribute. All the wooden 
seats in the public thoroughfares, the scaffoldings before the 
half-finished buildings had disappeared. At one of my 
friend's apartments there was none but the outer door left, 
all the others had been replaced by curtains. They had been 
chopped up to keep his family warm. The fear of the 
terrible landlord may have prevented the poor from imi- 
tating this proceeding. At any rate, I noticed no absent 
doors in my visits to any of them. A further supply of meat 
or bread, even if they had the money, Avas out of the question 
for them ; because, though some shops remained open and 
their owners were compelled to sell according to the tariff set 
forth by the municipality, they had nothing to sell. I re- 
member being in the Rue Lafayette one morning, near one of 
those shops, when I saw the whole of the crowd, that had 
been waiting there for hours probably, turn away disap- 
pointed. The assistant had just told them that " this morn- 
ing we have nothing to sell but preserved truffles." 

At the same time, I am bound to note the fact that, 
at the slightest rumours of peace, the usually empty win- 
dows became filled with artistically arranged pyramids of 
" canned " provisions, at prices considerably below those 
charged twenty-four hours before, and even below those 
mentioned in the municipal tariff. Frequent attempts were 
made by the police to discover the hiding-places for this 
stock, but they failed in every instance. Those hiding-places 
were far away from the shops, and the shopkeepers them- 
selves were too wary to be caught napping. A stranger 
might have safely gone in and offered a hundred francs for 
half a dozen tins of their wares. They would have looked 
a perfect blank, and told him they had none to sell : and 
no w^onder ; their detection would have meant certain death ; 
no earthly power could have saved them from the legitimate 
fury of the populace. And even those who bought the 
hidden food at abnormal prices were compelled to preserve 
silence, at the risk of seeing their supplies cut off. One 

* Five hundred French grammes make seventeen ounces English, and a 
fraction. — Editok. 



A SHOPKEEPER. 453 

thing is certain, and I can unhesitatingly vouch for it. My 
name had become known in connection with several com- 
mittees for the relief of the poor. On the 25th of Janu- 
ary, at 11 a.m., when the negotiations between Bismarck 
and M. Jules Favre could have been but in the preliminary 
stage, I received a note, brought by hand, from a grocer in 
the Faubourg Montmartre, asking me to call personally, as 
he had something to communicate which might be to the 
advantage of my proteges. An hour later, I was at his 
establishment, and he offered to sell me five hundred tins 
of various provisions and two hundred and fifty boxes of 
sardines at two francs each. It was something like double 
the ordinary price. A little more than three weeks before 
that date, I had sent a letter to the same man, asking him 
for a similar quantity of goods, which I intended to dis- 
tribute as 'New Year's gifts. The reply was, that he had 
none, but that he might possibly procure them at the rate of 
five francs a tin and box. I found out afterwards, that the 
excellent grocer had a son at the Ministry for Foreign 
Affairs. I need not point out the logical deduction. 

I am equally certain that there were large quantities of 
horseflesh, salted or fresh, hidden somewhere ; for, as I have 
already noted, it was officially, or at any rate semi-officially 
stated, that, on the day of the conclusion of the armistice, 
there were thirty thousand live horses in Paris, and the 
greater part of these would have been slaughtered by order 
of the Government, if the measure had been thought expe- 
dient, for there is scarcely any need to say that the pretext 
of their being wanted for military purposes would not hold 
water. A sixth part of them, or less, would have been amply 
sufficient for that. In reality, M. Favre and his colleagues 
were, by this time, fully convinced that all further resistance 
was useless, but they had not the courage to say so frankly, 
and they wished to convert the advocates of " resistance to 
death " to their side by aggravating the scarcity of the food 
supply, as if it were not bad enough already. The horses 
confiscated by the Government for food were paid for by 
them at the rate of between one and two francs per pound, 
yet there was no possibility of buying a single pound of 
horseflesh, beyond what was distributed at the municipal 
canteens, for less than seven or eight francs. Whence this 
difference? 

Butter could be bought for thirty to thirty-five francs per 



454 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

pound, but such butter ! Anything worth eating com- 
manded sixty francs. There was a kind of grease that 
fetched two francs per pound, but even the poorest shrank 
from it, and preferred to eat dry bread, which was composed 
as follows : — 

(For a Loaf of 300 Grammes.) 
75 grammes of wheat. 



rye, barley, or peas. 

rice. 

oats. 

chopped straw mixed with starch. 

bran. 



As for the rest, here are some of the prices — at which, 
however, things were not always to be had : — 

frs. 

A dog or a cat 20 

A rat, crow, or sparrow 3 or 4 

1 lb. of bear's flesh 13 

1 lb. of venison 14 

1 lb. of wolf's flesh, or porcupine's .... 8 

A rabbit 40 

A fowl 40 

A pigeon 25 

A goose 80 

A turkey 100 

1 lb. of ham (very rare) 10 

1 lb. of bacon (not so rare) 6 

Eggs (each) .5 

Haricot beans (per litre) 8 

Cabbages (each) 16 

Leeks (each) 1 

Bushel of carrots (2| gallons) 75 

Bushel of potatoes 35 

Bushel of onions 80 

Still, until the very last, there occurred, as far as I know, 
no case of actual starvation, and I was pretty well posted up 
in that respect. The very young and very old suffered most: 
for the milk that was sold at two francs per litre was simply 
disgraceful, three-fourths of it was water ; and beef -tea, or 
that worthy of the name, was not to be had at any price. 
Both commodities were distributed to the poor at the mu- 
nicipal canteens, on the certificate of a doctor ; but the latter, 
though by no means hard-hearted, and thoroughly sympa- 
thetic with the ills he was scarcely able to alleviate, had to 
draw the line somewhere. Of bedding, bed-linen, and warm 



THE STATE PAWNSHOP. 455. 

underclothing there was little or no lack ; but the cold, for 
several days, at frequent intervals was severe to a degree. 

Our ex-lieutenant's reference to the poor and their slender 
resources recurred frequently to my mind for several days 
after the scene described above, and set me wondering how 
far the poor had parted, finally or temporarily, Avith their 
household gods and small valuables in order to obtain some 
of the quasi-luxuries I have just enumerated. In order to 
get at the truth of the matter, I determined to pay a visit to 
the central pawnbroking office in the Kue des Blancs Man- 
teaux. I provided myself with a letter of introduction to 
the director, who placed an official at my disposal. This was 
towards the latter end of December. 

I transcribe my informant's statement in brief and from 
memory, but I am positive as to main facts. Up till the end 
of August the transactions at the central office, which vir- 
tually include those of the whole of the capital, presented 
nothing abnormal, but the moment the investment became 
an alm.ost foregone conclusion, there was a positive run on 
the Mont-de-Piete. The applicants for loans, however, were 
by no means of the poorest or even of the lower-middle class, 
but the well-to-do people, whose chief aim was to place their 
valuables in safety, and who looked upon the 9|- per cent, 
interest they had to pay on the advances received as a pre- 
mium for warehousing and insurance. They knev/ that 
nothing could be more secure than the fire and burglar proof 
receptacles of the Mont-de-Piete, and that, come what might, 
the State would be responsible for the value of the articles 
deposited. 

This run ceased when the investment was an accomplished 
fact, but, as a matter of course, the financial resources had 
been put to a severe test, and, at the time my informant 
spoke to me, they had dwindled from nearly eight millions 
of francs, at which they were computed in the beginning of 
August, to about three-quarters of a million. The order of 
the mayor of Paris, intended to prevent this, had come too 
late. The decree of 1863, limiting the maximum of a loan 
to ten thousand francs at the chief office, and to five hundred 
francs at any of the auxiliary ones, had been suspended in 
favour of a decision that, during the investment, no loan 
should exceed fifty francs.* From the 19th of September to 

* A similar measure had been decided upon in 1814, under analogous cireum- 
Btances, but the maximum was twenty francs instead of fifty francs.— Editor. 



456 -^N ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

the end of October, the cessation from all labour, and, conse- 
quently, the non-receipt of wages throughout the capital, had 
to be faced in the acceptance of thousands of pledges, con- 
sisting of household goods, apparel, etc. ; but, curiously 
enough, workmen's tools and implements formed but a small 
proportion of these. At present, the whole of the business 
was at a standstill ; there was no redemption of pledges, and 
few were offered.* 

Meanwhile, Christmas and the New Year were at hand, 
and not a single sortie had led to any practical modifica- 
tion of the situation. The cold was intense. Coal and 
coke could be obtained for neither money nor love. The 
street lamps had not been lighted for nearly a month ; up 
till the end of October, one had been lighted here and there ; 
then there had been an attempt to supply the absence of gas 
by paraffin in the public thoroughfares, but the stock of 
mineral oil was also getting lower. Most of the shops were 
closed, but, at the advent of the festive season, a few took 
down their shutters and made a feeble display of bonbons in 
sugar and chocolate, and even of marrons glaces. I doubt 
whether these articles found many purchasers. The toy- 
shops never took the trouble of exhibiting at all. They were 
wise in their abstention, for even the most ignorant Parisian 
was aware that nine-tenths of the wares in these establish- 
ments hailed from Germany, and he would assuredly have 
smashed the windows if they had been offered for sale. Nay, 
the booths that make their appearance on the Boulevards at 
that time of the year displayed few toys, except of a military 
kind. It was very touching, in after years, to hear the lads 
and lassies refer to the 1st of January, 1871, as the New 
Year's Day ivithout the Ketv Year's gifts. 

Nevertheless, it must not be thought that Paris was given 
over to melancholy on these two days. Crowds perambulated 
the streets and sat in the cafes. In spite of all that has been 
said by ultra-patriotic writers, I am inclined to think that 

* A curious feature in connection with the pledsrin.of of tools and implements 
may be recorded here. At the termination of the siege, a committee in London 
transmitted 20,000 francs (£800) for the express purpose of redeeming these. 
The Paris committee entrusted with the task, while grateful for the solicitude 
hhown, rightly considered that it would not go very far, considering that, at 
the time, the Mont-de-Piete held a total of 1,708,549 articles, representing loans 
to the amount of 07,502,743 francs. The authorities took particular puins to 
publish the receipt of the 20,000 francs, and the purposes thereof Within a 
given time, they returned ti,430 francs to the committee Only 2,383 tools (or 
Bets of tools) had been redeemed, representing a lent value of 13,570 ft-ancs. 



NEW YEAR'S DAY. 457 

the Parisians no longer cherished any illusions about the 
possibility of retrieving their disasters, though many may 
have thought that the besiegers would abstain, at the last 
moment, from shelling the city. The Government — whether 
with the intention of cheering the besieged or for the pur- 
pose of exhausting their stock of provisions as quickly as 
possible, in order to capitulate with better grace — had made 
the city a magnificent New Year's gift of 

104,000 kilogrammes of preserved beef, 
52,000 " " dried haricot beans, 

52,000 " " olive oil, 

52,000 " •' coffee (not roasted), 

52,000 " " chocolate; 

which gift elicited the reply of a group of artists and littera- 
teurs that, though thankful for their more epicurean brethren 
and sisters, they, the litterateurs and artists, had fared very 
well on Christmas Day and would meet again on New Year's 
Day to discuss the following menu : — 

'• Consomme de Cheval au millet. 

Brochettes de Foie de Chien a la Maitre d'Hotel. 

Emince de Rable de Chat, Sauce Mayonnaise. 

Epaules et Filets de Chien braises a la Sauce Tomate. 

Civet de Chat aux Champignons. 

Cotelettes de Chien aux Champignons. 

Gigots de Chien flanques de Ratons. 

Sauce Poivrade. 

Begonias au Jus. 

Plum-pudding au Rhum et a la Moelle de Cheval." 

Simultaneously with the publication of the menu, a dealer 
in the St. Germain Market put up a new signboard : — 

"RESISTANCE 1 OUTRANCE. 
" Grande Boucherie Canixe et Feline. 

*' L'heroTque Paris brave les Prussiens : 
II ne sera jamais vaincu par la famine ! 
Quand il aura mange la race chevaline 
ll mangera ses rats, et ses chats, et ses chiens." 

The proprietor of a cookshop in the Rue de Rome had 
confined himself to prose, but prose which, to those wbo 
could read it aright, was much cleverer than the poetry of 
his transpontine fellow-tradesman. 



458 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

"VIN A DIX-HUIT SOUS 

ET EAU-DESSUS, 

RossE Beef. 

Rat Gout de Mouton." * 

Personally, I have eaten the flesli of elephants, wolves, 
cassowaries, porcupines, bears, kangaroos, rats, cats, and 
horses. I did not touch dog's-flesh knowingly after I had 
been warned by our ex-lieutenant. The proprietor of the 
English butcher-shop, M. Debos, who was not an Englishman 
at all, supplied most of these strange dishes ; for he bought 
nearly all the animals from the Zoological Gardens at tremen- 
dous prices. These were only the animals from the Jardin 
d'Acclimation in the Bois, which had been sent as guests to 
the Jardin des Plantes. The elephants belonged to the latter 
establishment, and were sold to M. Debos for twenty-seven 
thousand francs. In January I was elected a member of the 
Jockey Club, but I had dined there once before by special in- 
vitation. I give the menu as far as I remember ; — 

" Soupe an Poireau. 

Aloyau de Boeuf. 

Poule au Riz. 

Flageolets aux Jus. 

Biscuits de Reims glaces. 

Charlotte aux Pommes." 

In spite of the hope that Paris would escape being shelled, 
minute instructions how to act, in the event of such a 
calamity, had been posted on the walls. In fact, if speechi- 
fying and the promulgation of decrees could have saved the 

* Here are the two English readings, as far as I am able to give them : — 

"WINE AT EIGPITEEN SOUS THE LITKE 
AND UPWAKDS. 

EoAST Beef. 
Ragout of Mutton." 

"WINE AT EIGHTEEN SOUS THE LITRE 
AND WATER ATOP. 

Old Crock's Flesh. 
Rat tasting of Mutton." — Editor. 



THE FIRST SHELLS. 459 

city, Trochu first, and the rest afterwards, would have so 
saved it. But I have solemnly promised myself at the outset 
of these notes not to be betrayed into any criticism of the 
military operations, and I will endeavour to keep my promise 
to myself. 

The first and foremost result of those directions on the 
part of the Government was a display of water-butts, filled to 
the brim, in the passage, and of sand-heaps in the yard of 
every building. As the months went by, and there was no 
sign of a bombardment, the contents of the casks became so 
much solid ice, and the sand-heaps disappeared beneath the 
accumulated snow, to be converted into slush and mire at the 
first thaw, which gave us, at the same time, a kind of minia- 
ture deluge, because, as a matter of course, the barrels had 
sprung leaks which were not attended to at the time. 

And when, early on the 5th of January, the first projectiles 
crashed down upon some houses in the south of Paris, the 
people were simply astonished, but still deluded themselves 
into the belief that it was a mistake, that the "trajectory" 
had been miscalculated, and the shells had carried farther 
than was intended. To a certain extent they had good 
grounds for their supposition. They had heard the big 
cannon boom and roar at frequent intervals ever since the 
morning of the 27th of December, and been given to 
understand that it w^as merely a big artillery duel for the 
possession of the plateau d'Avron, between the positions of 
Noisy-le- Grand and Gournay on the enemy's side, and the 
forts of Nogent, Rosny, and Noisy on that of the French. 
They were, furthermore, under the impression that the shell- 
ing of the city would be preceded by a final summons to sur- 
render : they had got that notion mostly from their military 
dramas and popular histories. But there were men, better 
informed than the majority of the masses, who made sure 
that, if not the Parisians themselves, the foreign consuls and 
the aliens under their charge would receive a sufficiently 
timely notice, in order to leave the city if they felt so 
minded. 

The 5th of January was a bitterly cold day ; it had been 
freezing hard during the whole of the night, and, as I wended 
my way across the Seine, about noon, the mist, which had 
been hanging over the river, was slowly rising in banked and 
jagged masses, with only a rift here and there for the piti- 
lessly glacial sun to peer through and mock at our shivering 



460 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

condition. When I got to the Boulevard Montparnasse, I 
met several stretchers, bearing sentries who had been abso- 
lutely frozen to within an ace of death. 

I know nothing of the military import of a bombardment, 
but have been told that even the greatest strategists only 
count upon the moral effect it produces upon the besieged 
inhabitants. I can only say this: if Marshal von Moltke 
took the " moral effect " of his projectiles into his calcula- 
tions to accelerate the surrender of Paris, he might have gone 
on shelling Paris for a twelvemonth without being one whit 
nearer his aim; that is, if I am to judge by the scene I wit- 
nessed on that January morning, before familiarity w^ith the 
destruction-dealing shells could have produced the proverbial 
contempt. At the risk of offending all the sensation-mongers, 
foreign and native, with pen or with pencil, I can honestly say 
that a broken-down omnibus and a couple of prostrate horses 
would have excited as much curiosity as did the sight of the 
battered tenements at Vaugirard, Montrouge, and Vanves. 
On the Chaussee du Maine, the roadway had been ploughed 
up for a distance of about half a dozen yards by a shell ; in 
another spot, a shell had gone clean through the roof and 
killed a women by the side of her husband ; in a third, a 
shell had carried away part of the wall of a one-storied 
cottage, and the whole of the opposite wall : in short, there 
was more than sufficient evidence that life was no longer safe 
within the fortifications, and yet there was no wailing, no 
wringing of hands, no heartrending frenzied look of despair, 
either pent up or endeavouring to find vent in shrieks and 
yells, nay, not even on the part of the women. There was 
merely a kind of undemonstrative contempt — very unlike the 
usual French way of manifesting it — blended with a con- 
siderable dash of hadauderie^ — for which word I cannot find 
an English equivalent, because the Parisian loafer or idler is 
unlike any of his European congeners. To grasp the differ- 
ence between the former and the latter, one must have had 
the good fortune to see the same incident in the streets of 
Paris, London, Madrid, Florence, and Rome, Vienna, Berlin, 
and St. Petersburg, not to mention Brussels, the Hague, 
Amsterdam, Munich, and Dresden. The " Monsieur Prud- 
homme" of Charles Monnier shows but one facet of the 
Paris badaud's character. The nearest approach to him is 
the middle-class English tourist on the Continent, who en- 
deavours to explain to his wife and companions things he 



NO MORE BREAD. 461 

does not know himself, and blesses his stars aloud for having 
made him an Englishman. 

But even the Paris badaud, who is not unlike his Koman 
predecessor in his craving for circuses, must have bread ; and 
when the cry arises, a fortnight later, that " there is no more 
bread," the siege is virtually at an end. 



462 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Some men of the Commune — Cluseret — His opinion of Kossel — His opinion of 
Bergeret— What Chiseret was fighting for — Thiers and Abraham Lincoln 
— Eaoul Eigault on liorseback — Theophile Ferre — Ferrd and Gil-Peres, the 
actor — The comic men of the Commune — Gambon — Jourde, one of the 
most valuable of the lot — His financial abilities — His endeavours to save — 
Jourde at Godillot's — Colonel Maxime Lisbonne — The Editor's recollections 
of him — General Dombrowski and Genei-al la Cecilia — A soiree at the 
Tuileries — A gala-performance at the Opera Comique — The death-knell of 
the Commune. 

I HAVE before now spoken of a young medical student in 
whose company I spent several evenings at a cafe on the 
Boulevard St. Michel, during the Empire. He, like myself, 
remained in Paris during the siege, and refused to stir at the 
advent of the Commune. As a matter of course, whenever 
we met, while the latter lasted, we rarely spoke of anything 
else. He sympathized, to a certain extent, with the principle, 
though not with the would-be expounders of it. I knew few, 
if any, of the leaders even by sight, though I had heard of 
some, such as, for instance, Jules Valles, in connection with 
their literary work. My admiration was strictly confiued to 
those performances, and I often said so to my friend. " You 
are mistaken in your estimate of them," he invariably replied. 
*' There are men of undoubted talent among them, for in- 
stance, Cluseret ; but most of them are like square pegs in 
round holes. Come with me to-night, and you will be able 
to judge for yourself ; for he is sure to be at the Brasserie 
Saint-Severin." 

I had never been to the Brasserie Saint-Severin, though I 
had paid two or three visits several years before to the cafe de 
la Renaissance opposite the Fontaine Saint-Michel, at which 
establishment the Commune may be said to have been 
hatched. It was there that, in 1866, Eaoul Rigault, Longuet, 
the brothers Levraud, Dacosta, Genton, Protot, and a dozen 
more were arrested by the Commissary of Police, M. Cle- 



CLUSERET. 463 

That night, about eight o'clock, we crossed the Pont 
Saint-Michel, and, in a minute or so, found ourselves amidst 
some of the shining lights of the Commune. 

Save on review days I had never seen so many brilliant 
uniforms gathered .together. As far as I can recollect, there 
was only one civilian in the group pointed out to me. He 
looked a mere skeleton, was missliapen, and one of the 
ugliest men I have ever met. I asked his name, and was 
told it was Tridon. The name was perfectly familiar to me 
as belonging to one of the most remarkable polemists during 
the late regime. A little while afterwards, Cluseret came in. 

My friend introduced me, and we sat talking for more 
than two hours ; and I have rarely been more interested than 
I was that night. Cluseret spoke English very well, for he 
had been in America several years, and our conversation was 
carried on in that language. I have already remarked that I 
had no intention, at that time, to jot down my recollections, 
still I was so impressed with what I had heard that I made 
some rough memoranda when I got home. They are among 
the papers I have preserved. 

Cluseret fostered no illusions as to the final upshot of the 
Commune. " If every man were as devoted to the cause as 
Kossuth and Garibaldi we!'e to theirs, we should not be able 
to establish a pernianent Commune ; but this is by no means 
the case. Most of the leaders, even those who are not self- 
seekers, are too visionarv in their aims; they will not abate 
one jot of their ideal. The others think of nothing but their 
own aggrandisement, and though many are no doubt capable 
to a degree, they are absolutely useless for the posts they have 
chosen for themselves. There are certainly exceptions ; such 
as, for instance, Rossel. His technical knowledge is very 
considerable. If I had to describe him in two words, I 
should call him Lothario-Cromwell. For, notwithstanding 
his military aptitudes and his Puritan stiffness in many 
things, he has too many petticoats about him. In addition 
to this, he is overbearing and absolutely eaten up with ambi- 
tion ; he is a republican who despises the proletariat ; he 
would fain imitate the axiom of Napoleon L, ' The tools to 
those who can use them ; ' but he forgets that it will not do 
for a socialistic regime such as we would establish, because it 
is exactly those that cannot use the tools who wish to be 
treated as if they could. If they had intelligence enough to 
use the tools, they would have lifted themselves out of their 



464 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

humble, unsatisfactory positions without any aid. Rossel is 
no doubt a better strategist than I am, and I do not in the 
least mind his letting me know it, but if Dombrowski or 
Bergeret was ' Delegate for War,' Rossel would have been in 
prison or shot a fortnight ago.'' 

" For," continued Cluseret, " Bergeret especially thinks 
himself a heaven-born general. He shows well on horseback, 
because, I believe, he began life as a stable-lad : so did Michel 
Ney ; but then, Michel Ney served his apprenticeship at 
fighting, while Bergeret became a compositor, a chef -de- 
claque, a proof-reader, and, finally, a traveller for a publishing 
firm. All these are, no doubt, very honourable occupatious, 
but they are scarcely calculated to make a good general. 
Still, you should see him : he wears his sash as your officers 
wear theirs when on duty ; he would like the people to mis- 
take it for the grand-cordon of the Legion d'Honneur ; and 
his staif is more numerous than that of the late Emperor. 
You should go and dine at the head-quarters of the military 
governor of Paris ; I am sure you would be very welcome. 
Marast at the Palais-Bourbon in '48 was nothing to it. If 
the Commune lasts another three months there will be serv- 
ants in livery, gold" lace, and powder, like in your country. 
At present, Bergeret has to put up with attendants in fault- 
less black. 

" Personally," he went on, " I am not fighting for Com- 
munism, but for Com munalism, which, I need not tell you, is 
quite a different thing. I fail to see why Paris and Lyons 
should be judged incapable of managing their own municipal 
affairs without the interference of the State, while other great 
jprovincial centres are considered capable of doing so. The 
English Government does not interfere with the municipal 
affairs of London on the plea that it is the capital, with those 
of Manchester on the plea that it has inaugurated a policy of 
its own, any more than it interferes with those of Liverpool, 
Leeds, or Bristol. Your lord-lieutenants of counties are vir- 
tually decorative officials, something different from our pre- 
fects and our sub-prefects, and your Home Secretary has not 
a hundredth part of the power of our Minister of the Inte- 
rior. We wish to go a step further than you, without, how- 
ever, shirking the financial obligations imposed by a federa- 
tion. What you would call imperial taxes, we are willing to 
pay in kind as well as money. This is one of the things Ave 
do want; what we do not want is the resuscitation of the 



BELLIGERENTS, NOT INSURGENTS. 465 

Empire. I am not speaking at random when I tell you that 
there are rumours about traitors in our camp, and that, ac- 
cording to these rumours, the struggle against the Versaillese 
troops would be a mere pretext to sweep the deck for the un- 
opposed entry of an imperial army into Paris. Whence would 
that army be recruited ? From among the prisoners going to 
leave Germany, who have been worked all the while in the 
interest of the Napoleonic dynasty. After all, we have as 
much right to overthrow the Government of Versailles as the 
Government of Versailles had the right to upset the Empire. 
Their powers are by no means more valid by virtue of the 
recent elections, than was the power of Louis-Napoleon by 
virtue of the plebiscite of 1870. Does M. Thiers really think 
that he is a better or greater man than Abraham Lincoln, 
who treated the Southerns as belligerents, not as insurgents? " 

So far Cluseret. I am not prepared to say that he was a 
strictly honourable man, but he was a very intelligent one, 
probably the most intelligent among the leaders of the Com- 
mune. At any rate, his conversation made me anxious to get 
a nearer sight of some of the latter, and, as they had evident- 
ly made the Brasserie Saint-Severin their principal resort of 
an evening, I returned thither several times. 

A few nights afterwards, I was just in time to witness the 
arrival of Raoul Eigault, on horseback, accompanied by a 
staff running by the side of his animal. The whole reminded 
me irresistibly of Decamp's picture, " La Patrouille Turque." 
The Prefect of Police was scarcely less magnificently attired 
than the rest of his fellow-dignitaries. His uniform, if I re- 
member rightly, was blue with red facings, but it is impossible 
to say, because it was covered everywhere with gold lace. 
His myrmidons hustled the crowd in order to make room for 
their chief, and some one laughed : " Mais il n'y a rien de 
change ; c'est absolument comme sous I'Empire." For a 
moment Rigault sat quite still, surveying the crowd and 
ogling the women through his double eye-glasses. Then he 
alighted, and caught sight of my friend and myself standing 
on the threshold. "Quels sont ces citoyens?" he inquired, 
taking us in from top to toe, and stroking his long beard all 
the while. Some one told him our names, at which he made 
a wry face, the more that mine must have been familiar to 
him, seeing that a very near relative of mine, bearing the 
same, had been a special favourite with General Vinoy. He 
did not think fit to molest us ; had he done so, it might have 
31 



4:G(^ AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

fared badly with ns, for by the time Lord Lyons could have 
interfered, we might have been shot. 

Ever since, my friend and I have been under the impres- 
sion that we owed our lives to a dark, ugly little man who, at 
that moment, whispered something to him, and who, my 
friend told me, immediately afterwards, was the right hand 
of Eaoul Rigault, Theophile Ferre. That name was also 
familiar to me, as it was to most Parisians, previous to the 
outbreak of the war, because Ferre was implicated in the plot 
against Louis-Napoleon's life, and was tried in the early part 
of '70 at Blois. Every one knew how he insulted the Presi- 
dent, how he refused to answer, and finally exclaimed, ^' Yes, 
I am an anarchist, a socialist, an atheist, and woe to you 
when our turn comes." He kept his word ; he was a fiend, 
and looked one. Whenever there was anything cruel and 
bloodthirsty going on, he made it a point to be present. lie 
was, though ugly, not half so ugly as Tridon, but one invol- 
untarily recoiled from him. 

Curiously enough, this very Theophile Ferre, whom I 
then saw for the first time, had been the subject of a conversa- 
tion I had with Gil-Peres, the actor of the Palais-Royal, on 
the 25th or 26th of March. I had known Gil-Peres from 
the moment he made his mark in " La Dame aux Camelias " 
as Gaudens. To my great surprise, a day or two after the 
proclamation of the Commune, I heard that he had been 
cruelly maltreated in the Rue Drouot, that he had narrowly 
escaped being killed. Two days later, I paid him a visit in 
his lodgings at Montmartre ; for he had been severely, though 
not dangerously hurt, and was unable to leave his bed. 

" I am very sorry for your mishap," I said ; " but what, in 
Heaven's name, induced you to meddle with politics ? " 

He burst out laughing, in that peculiar laugh of his which 
I have never heard before or since, on or off the stage. The 
nearest approach to it was that of Grassot, but the latter's 
was like a discharge of artillery, while Gil-Peres was like 
that of a musketry volley. 

" I did not meddle with politics," he replied ; " but you 
know how fond I am of going among crowds to study char- 
acter. This day last week, I was passing along the Rue 
Drouot, when I saw a large group in front of the Mairie. I 
had left home early in the morning, I knew nothing of what 
was going on in my neighbourhood, so you may imagine my 
surprise when I heard them calmly discussing the death of 



THEOPHILE PERRE. 467 

Clement Thomas and Lecomte. My hair stood positively on 
end, and I must have pushed a bit in order to get nearer the 
speakers. I had a long black coat on, and they mistook me 
for a cure. I did all I could to tell them my name, but, be- 
fore I could utter a word, I was down, and they began tramp- 
ling on me. Some one, God alone knows who, saved me, by 
telling them my name. I knew nothing more, for I was 
brought home unconscious. And to think," he added, " that 
I might have been a member of the Commune myself, if I 
had liked." 

" What do you mean?" I said, for I began to think that 
he was out of his mind. 

" Well, you know that during the siege I tried to do my 
duty as a National Guard, and in my battalion was this 
Theophile Ferre of whom you have already heard. A most 
intelligent creature, but poor as Job and ferocious to a de- 
gree. He w. . a study to me, and, of late, he frequently came 
to see me in the morning. I generally asked him to stay to 
breakfast, for I liked to hear him talk of the future Com- 
mune, though I had not the slightest faith in his visions. I 
considered him a downright lunatic. About two or three 
days before this outbreak, he came, one morning, looking as 
pale as a ghost, but evidently very much excited. Before I 
had time to ask him the cause of his emotion, he exclaimed, 
* This time there is no mistake about it ; we are the masters.' 
I suppose my face must have looked a perfect blank, for he 
proceeded to explain. * In two days we'll hold our sittings at 
the Hotel-de-Ville, and the Commune will be proclaimed. 
And now, he added, 'what can I do for you, citoyen Gil- 
Peres ? You have always been very kind to me, and I am 
not likely to forget it when I am at the top of the tree.' 

" I told him that I'd feel much obliged to him if he could 
induce Sardou or Dumas to write me a good part, like the lat- 
ter had done before, because I wanted to be something more 
than a comic actor. But I saw that he was getting angry. 

" ' Do you mean to tell me,' he almost hissed, ' that you 
do not want to belong to the Commune ? ' 

" ' I haven't the slightest ambition that way,' I replied. 
' People would only make fun of me, and they would be per- 
fectly right.' 

" ' Why should people make fun of you ? ' 

"'Because, because ' I stammered. 

*' He left me no time to finish. ' Because you are a small 



468 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

man,' he said. ' Well, I am a small man, too, and an ugly 
one into the bargain. I can assure you that the world will 
hear as much of me before long as if I had been an Adonis 
and a Hercules.' "With this he disappeared, and I have not 
seen him since." 

My purpose in reporting this conversation is to show that 
the Commune, with all its evils, might have been prevented 
by the so-called government of Versailles, if its members had 
been a little less eager to get their snug berths comfortably 
settled. 

To return for a moment to Ferre and his companions, 
who, without exception, were sober to a degree, though many 
were probably fond of good cheer. The English writers, 
often very insufficiently informed, have generally maintained 
the contrary, but I know for a fact that, among the leaders 
of the movement, drunkenness was unknown. Ferre him- 
self was among the soberest of the lot : the few evenings I 
saw him he drank either cold coffee or some cordial diluted 
with water. Nevertheless, it was he who was directly re- 
sponsible for the death of Archbishop Darboy, whom he 
could and might have saved. 

In every modern tragedy there is a comic element, and in 
that of the Commune the comic parts were, to a certain ex- 
tent, sustained by Gambon, Jourde, and a few others whom 
it is not necessary to mention. Gambon was one of the mild- 
est of creatures, and somewhat of a " communard malgre 
lui." He would have willingly "left the settlement of all 
these vexed questions to moral force," and he proposed once 
or twice a mission to Versailles to that effect. He was about 
fifty, and a fine specimen of a robust, healthy farmer. His 
love of " peaceful settlement " arose from an experiment he 
had made in that way during the Empire, though it is very 
doubtful whether strictly logical reasoners would have looked 
upon it as " peaceful." Gambon had been a magistrate and 
a member of the National Assembly during the Second Ee- 
public, and voted with the conservative side. The advent of 
the Empire made an end of his parliamentary career, and, in 
order to mark his disapproval of the Coup-d'Etat and its 
sequel, Gambon refused to pay his taxes. The authorities 
seized one of his cows, and were proceeding to sell it by 
auction, when Gambon, accompanied by a good many of his 
former constituents, appeared on the scene. " This cow," he 
shouts, " has been stolen from me by the Imperial fisc, and 



A MAN AND A COW. 4-69 

wliosoever buys it is nothing more than a thief himself." 
Eesult : not a single bid for the cow, and the auctioneer was 
compelled to adjourn the sale for a week. The auctioneer 
deemed it prudent to transport the cow to a neighbouring 
commune, but Gambon had got wind of the alfair, and 
adopted the same expedient of moral persuasion. For nearly 
three months the auctioneer transported the cow from one 
commune to another, and Gambon followed him everywhere, 
until they reached the limits of the department. Gambon 
apprehended that moral persuasion would have no effect 
among strangers, and he let things take their course. The 
cost of selling the cow amounted to about ten times its 
worth. As a matter of course, the whole affair was revived 
by " les journaux bien pensants " at the advent of the Com- 
mune, and Gambon was elected a member by the 10th Arron- 
dissement. Gambon managed to escape into Switzerland; 
but when the amnesty was proclaimed, he returned, and 
solicited once more the suffrages of his former constituents. 
At the Brasserie Saint-Severin, Gambon was generally to be 
found at the ladies' table, about the occupants of which I 
cannot speak, seeing that I was not introduced to them. 

Joiirde was one of two " financial delegates " of the Com- 
mune. He had been a superior employe at the Bank of 
France, and was considered an authority on financial affairs. 
It was he to whom the Marquis de Ploeuc, the governor of 
the Bank, had handed the first million for the use of the 
Commune. My friend, the doctor, had known him in his 
former capacity, and often invited him to our table, to which 
invitation the " paymaster-general " always eagerly responded. 
One evening, the conversation turned upon the events which 
had preceded the request for funds. " On the second day of 
the Commune," he said, " the want of money began to be 
horribly felt. Eudes proposed that I should go and fetch 
some from the Bank of France. To be perfectly candid, I 
did not care about it. Had I been a soldier, I might have 
invaded the Bank at the head of a regiment ; but, to go and 
ask my former chief for a million or so as a matter of course, 
was a different thing, and I had not the moral courage. The 
director of the Bank of France is very little short of a god to 
his subordinates, and, in spite of our boasted ' Liberty, Fra- 
ternity, and Equality,' there is no nation so ready to bow 
down before its governors as the French. Seeing that I hung 
back, Eudes proposed to go himself, and did, refusing to take 



4:70 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

a single soldier with him. But he did not want the respon- 
sibility of handling the million of francs the governor placed 
at our disposal, so I was, after all, obliged to beard my former 
chief in his own den. He was very polite, and called me 
' Monsienr le delegue aux finances,^ but I would have pre- 
ferred his calling me all the names in the world, for I caught 
sight of a very ironical smile at the corners of his mouth 
when, on taking leave of him, he said, ' You may be my suc- 
cessor one day. Monsieur le delegue, and I hope you will 
profit by the lessons I have always endeavoured to teach my 
subordinates : obedience to the powers that be.' " 

Jourde was by no means a fool or a braggart ; he was a 
very good administrator, and exceedingly conscientious. Like 
most men who have had the constant handling of important 
sums of money, he was absolutely indifferent to it ; and I feel 
certain that he did not feather his own nest during the two 
months he had the chance. But he vainly endeavoured to 
impress upon the others the necessity for economy. Every 
now and then he tore his red hair and beard at the waste 
going on at the Hotel-de-Ville, where, in the beginning, Assi 
was keeping open table. Not that they were feasting, but 
every one who had a mind could sit down, and, though the 
sum charged by the steward was moderate, two francs for 
breakfast and two francs fifty centimes for dinner, the num- 
ber of self-invited guests increased day by day, and the pay- 
master-general was at his wits' end to keep pace with the ex- 
penses. The Central-Committee put a stop to this indiscrimi- 
nate hospitality by simply arresting Assi, whom I never saw. 

When the Commune decreed the demolition of the Yen- 
dome column, Jourde was still more angry and in despair. 
He was, first of all, opposed to its destruction, from a patri- 
otic and common-sense point of view : secondly, he objected 
to the waste of money that destruction entailed ; he endeav- 
oured to cut the Gordian knot by stopping the workmen's 
pay. Though three or four of his fellow " delegates " were 
absolutely of the same opinion, the rest sent him a polite in- 
timation that if the necessary funds were not disbursed vol- 
untarily they would send for them, and take the opportunity, 
at the same time, to " put him against the wall," and make 
an end of him. That night, Courbet, the painter, who had 
been the prime mover in this work of destruction, came to 
the Brasserie Saint-Severin from the Brasserie Andler, hard 
by, to taste the sweets of his victory. His friend, Chaudey, 



THE GLORY OF SOLOMON. 471 

of the Steele^ was no longer with him. Like Mgr. Darboy, 
the Abbes Lagarde, Crozes, and Deguerry, he had been 
arrested by Raoul Rigault as a hostage, in virtue of a decree 
by the Commune, setting forth that every execution of a 
prisoner of war, taken by the Versaillais, would be followed 
by the execution of three hostages to be drawn by lot. 

Jourde did not wear a uniform ; at any rate, I never saw 
^him in one. I happened to remark upon it one evening, and 
he then gave me a partial explanation why the others did 
wear them in so ostentatious a manner. 

" It is really done to please the National Guards ; they 
mistrust those who remain ' in mufti ; ' they attribute their 
reluctance to don the uniform to the fear of being compro- 
mised, to the wish to escape unnoticed if things should go 
wrong. I grant you that all this does not warrant the uni- 
forms most of my colleagues do wear, but to the Latin races 
the wisdom of Solomon lies in his magnificence, and they 
trace the elevation of Joseph to its primary cause — his coat 
of many colours. I am not only ' delegate of finances ' and 
paymaster-general, but head cook and bottle-washer in all 
that concerns monetary matters to the Central-Committee. I 
have very few clerks to assist me in my work, and fewer still 
upon whose honesty I can depend ; consequently, I am com- 
pelled to do a good deal of drudgery myself. Yesterday I 
received the fortnightly accounts of Godillot,* the military 
tailors and accoutrement manufacturers. They seemed to me 
simply monstrous, not so much in respect of the prices charged 
for each uniform, as in respect of the number of uniforms 
supplied. To have sent one of my clerks would have been of 
no earthly use ; there is an old Normand saying about send- 
ing the cat to Rome and his coming back mewing ; the clerk 
would have simply come back mewing, saying that there was 
no mistake, so I went myself. I saw the chief manager. 

" ' I am positive there is no mistake, monsieur,' he said, 
* though I may tell you at once that I made the same remark 
when I passed the accounts ; the number of uniforms seemed 
to me inordinately large ; mais il faut se rendre a I'evidence, 
and I ticketed off every item by its corresponding voucher. 
Still I felt that there is a terrible waste somewhere, and said 
so to the head of the retail department. " If you will remain 

* The word " Godillot " has passed into the French language, and, at pres- 
ent, means the soldier's shoes.— Editor. 



472 ^N ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

downstairs for one hour," was the answer, " you will have 
the explanation." I can only say the same to you, Monsieur 
le delegue.' 

" I did remain on that ground-floor for one hour," Jourde 
went on, " and, during that time, no fewer than eight young 
fellows came in with vouchers for complete uniforms of lieu- 
tenants or captains of the staff. Most of them looked to me 
as if they had never handled a sword or rifle in their lives — 
yardsticks seemed more in their line; and the airs they gave 
themselves positively disgusted me ; but I do not want an- 
other reminder of the Central-Committee about my cheese- 
paring, so I'll let things take their course. Look, here is a 
sample of how we deck ourselves out quand nous allons en 
guerre." 

I looked in the direction pointed out to me, and beheld a 
somewhat dark individual with lank, black hair, of ordinary 
height, or a little below perhaps, dressed in a most extraor- 
dinary costume. He wore a blue Zouave jacket, large baggy 
crimson breeches tucked into a pair of quasi- hessian boots, a 
crimson sash, and a black sombrero hat with a red feather. 
A long cavalry sabre completed the costume. Upon the 
whole, he carried himself well, though there was a kind of 
swashbuckler air about him which smacked of the stage. I 
was not mistaken ; the scent or the smell of the footlights 
was over it all. 

" This is Colonel Maxime Lisbonne, an actor by profes- 
sion, wdio has taken to soldiering with a vengeance," said 
Jourde. " There is no doubt about his b^^avery, but he is as 
fit to be a colonel as I am to be a general. It does not seem 
to strike my colleagues that, in no matter what profession, 
one has to serve an apprenticeship, and, most of all, in the 
science of soldiering ; Maxime Lisbonne said he would be a 
colonel, so they, without more ado, made him one.* He 
never moves without that Turco at his heels." 

* During my stay in Paris, 1881-86, as the correspondent of a London even- 
ing paper, I had occasion to see a great deal of M. Maxime Lisbonne, who is a 
prominent figure at nearly every social function, such as premieres, the unveil- 
mg of monuments, the opening of public buildings, etc. The reason of this 
prominence has never been veiy clear to me, unless it be on the assumption 
that the Paris journalists, even the foremost of whom he treats on a footing of 
equality, consider him " good copy." Only as late as a few years ago, he made 
a considerable sensation in the Paris press by appearing at one of M. Carnot's 
receptions in evening dress, redolent of benzine, " because the dress had been 
lying perdu for so many years." It was he who started the famous " taverne 
du bagne," on the Boulevard Kochechouart, to which " all Paris " flocked. 



ANOTHER GENERAL. 473 

On another occasion I saw the famous General Dombrow- 
ski, and the no less famous Colonel or General la Cecilia. I 
only exchanged a few words with the former, but I sat talk- 
ing for a whole evening to the latter. He was a short, spare, 
fidgety man, strongly pitted with small-pox, with a few 
straggling hairs on the upper lip and chin. He was terribly 
near-sighted, and wore a pair of thick spectacles. Nervous 
and restless to a degree, but a voice of remarkable sw^eetness. 
His English was faultless, with scarcely any accent, and I 
was told that he spoke every European language and several 
Oriental ones with the same accuracy. He was the only 
Frenchman who could converse with Dombrowski and the 
other Poles in their native language. He was a clever mathe- 
matician, and, that evening, he endeavoured to prove mathe- 
matically that Von Moltke had committed several blunders, 
both at Sadowa and Sedan. " That kind of thing," said 
Jourde, after he w^as gone, " was sure to ' fetch ' the Central- 
Committee ; he always reminds me of the doctors in Moliere 
trying to prove that one of their confreres had cured a pa- 
tient contrary to the principles of medicine. Mind, do not 
imagine that La Cecilia is not a good soldier. He got all his 
grades in the Italian army, on the battle-fields of '59-'60, 
and, during the late war, he directed the brilliant defence of 
Alen^on. But between a good soldier and a great general 
there is a vast difference." 

Physically, Dombrow^ski was almost the counterpart of 
La Cecilia, with the exception of the glasses and the small- 
pox. But while the Frenchman — for Cecilia was a French- 
man notwithstanding his Italian name — was modest though 
critical, the Pole was a braggart, though by no means devoid 
of courage. Up to the very end, he sent in reports of his 
victories, all of which were purely imaginary. Even as late 

Previous to this, he had been the lessee of the Boutf'es du Nord, at which 
theatre he brouirht out Louise Michel's " Nadine." Thouarh by no means an 
educated man, he can, on occasions, behave himself very well, and truth com- 
pels me to state that he is very good-natured and obliging. One day, on the 
occasion of an important murder trial, I failed to see Commandant Lunel at the 
Palais de Justice, and was turning away disconsolately, when, at a sign from 
M. Lisbonne, the sergeant of the Gardes* de Paris, who "had refused to aclmit me 
on the presentation of my card, relented. That same afternoon, at the mere 
expression of his wish, the manager of the Jardin de Paris, which had just 
been opened, presented me with a season ticket, or, to speak correctly, placed 
my name on the permanent free list. In short, I could mention a scoVe of in- 
stances of a similar nature ; all tending to show that M. Maxime Lisbonne's 
"participation in the events of the Commune" has had the effect of investing 
him with a kind of social halo. — Editor. 



474 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

as the 21st of May, when the Versailles troops were carrying 
everything before them, the newspaper-boys were shouting, 
" Brilliant victory of General Dombrowski." Dombrowski 
had been invested with his high command under the pretext 
that he had fought under Garibaldi and in the Polish strug- 
gle against Russia. It transpired afterwards that he had 
never seen Garibaldi nor Garibaldi him, and that, so far 
from having aided his own countrymen, he had been a sim- 
ple private in the Russian army. Still, he was a better man 
than his countryman Wrobleski, who showed his courage by 
going to bed while the Versaillais were shelling Vanves. 
******* 

Among my papers I find a torn programme of a concert at 
the Tuileries during the Commune. It reads as follows : — 

Commune de Paris, 
PALAIS DES TUILERIES 
Servant pour la premiere fois a une cEuvre patriotique 
GRAND CONCERT 

Au Profit des Veuves et Orphelins de la Republique. 



Soils le Patronage de la Commune et du Citoyen Dr, Rousselle. 



Tout porteur de billet pris a Tavance pourra sans retribution, visiter le 
Palais des Tuileries. 

The rest is missing, but I remember that among the art- 
ists who gave their services were Mesdames Agar and Bordas ; 
MM. Coquelin cadet, and Francis Thome, the pianist. 

I did not take mv ticket beforehand, consequently was 
not entitled to a stroll through the Palace previous to the 
concert. When I entered the Salle des Marechaux, where 
the concert was to take place, I felt thankful that the trial 
had been spared to me, and I mentally ejaculated a wish that 
I might never see that glorious apartment under similar cir- 
cumstances. The traces of neglect were too painful to be- 
hold, though I am bound to say that I could detect no proofs 
of wilful damage. My wish was gratified with a vengeance. 
A little more than a month afterwards, the building was in 



A SOIREE AT THE TUILERIES. 475 

flames, and, at the hour I write, it is being razed to the 
ground. 

I did not stay long; I heard Madame Agar, dressed in 
deep mourning, declaim " the Marseillaise," and M. Thome 
execute a fantasia on well-known operatic airs. Some of the 
reserved seats were occupied by the minor dignitaries of the 
Commune, but the greater part of the place was filled by 
working men and their spouses and the very petite bour- 
geoisie. The latter seemed to be in doubt whether to enjoy 
themselves or not ; but the former were very vociferous, and 
had evidently made up their minds that the Commune was 
the best of all possible regimes, seeing that it enabled them 
to listen to a concert in a palace for a mere trifle. " That's 
equality, as I understand it, monsieur," said a workman in a 
very clean blouse to me, at the same time making room for 
me on the seat next to him. He and his companion beguiled 
the time between the first and second number on the pro- 
gramme by sucking barley-sugar. 

About a month later — on Wednesday, May 17th, but I 
will not be certain — I was present at the first gala-perform- 
ance organized by the Commune, although the Versailles 
troops were within gunshot of the fortifications. This time 
I had taken a ticket beforehand. The performance was to 
take place at the Opera-Comique, and long before the ap- 
pointed hour the Boulevards and the streets adjoining the 
theatre were crowded with idlers, anxious to watch the ar- 
rival of the bigwigs under whose immediate patronage the 
entertainment was to be given. The papers had been full of 
it for days and days beforehand ; the posters on the walls had 
set forth its many attractions. In accordance with tradi- 
tional usage on such occasions, the programme was a miscel- 
laneous one, and the wags did not fail to remark that the 
Commune ought to have struck out something original in- 
stead of blindly following the precedents of tyrants ; but in 
reality the Commune had no choice. Few of the principal 
artists of the subsidized theatres were available, and there 
was an evident reluctance to co-operate among some of those 
who were ; hence it was decided to give fragments of such 
operas or comedies, calculated to stimulate still further the 
patriotic and republican sentiments with which the majority 
of the spectators were credited. There had been less diffi- 
culty in recruiting the orchestra, and a very fair band was 
got together. A great many invitations had been issued ; 



476 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

few of the seats, especially in tlie better parts, were paid 
for. 

All the entrances had been thrown open, and around every- 
one there was a considerable gathering, almost exclusively 
composed of National Guards in uniform, and w^omen of 
the working classes, who enthusiastically cheered each 
known personage on his arrival. The latter were too mag- 
nificent for words, the clanking sabres, resplendent uni- 
forms, and waving plumes only paled in contrast with the 
toilettes of their female companions who hung proudly on 
their arms. For them, at any rate, " le jour de gloire etait 
arrive." 

The crowd, especially the fairer portion of it, was de- 
cidedly enthusiastic, perhaps somewhat too enthusiastic, in 
their ultra-cordial greetings and recognition of the ladies, so 
suddenly promoted in the social scale. Melanie and Clarisse 
would have been satisfied with a less literal interpretation 
of " Auld Lang Syne," as they stepped out of the car- 
riages, the horses of which belied the boast that at the end 
of the siege there were 30,000 serviceable animals of that 
kind left. 

The performance had been timed for half-past seven ; at 
half-past eight, the principal box set apart for the chiefs of 
the new regime was still empty. As I have already said, dis- 
quieting rumours had been afloat for the last few days with 
regard to the approach of the Versailles troops, the guns had 
been thundering all day long, and, wdiat was worse, for the 
last forty-eight hours no " startling victory " had been an- 
nounced either on the walls of Paris or in the papers. Some 
of the " great men," among the audience in the stalls and 
dress-circle, and easily to be distinguished from the ruck of 
ordinary mortals, professed themselves unable to supply au- 
thentic information, but as the performance had not been 
countermanded, they suggested that things were not so bad 
as they looked. 

The theatre was crammed from floor to ceiling, and the 
din was something terrible. The heat was oppressive ; luckily 
the gas was burning low because the companies w^ere as yet 
unable to provide a full supply. There were few people out 
of uniform in either stalls or dress-circle, but the upper parts 
were occupied by blouses with a fair sprinkling of cloth coats. 
The women seemed to me to make the most infernal noise. 
The two stage-boxes were still empty; in the others there 



A GALA PERFORMANCE. 477 

were a good many journalists and ladies who had come to 
criticize the appearance and demeanour of the " dames de 
nos nouveaux gouveruants," There was one box which at- 
tracted particular attention ; one of its occupants, evidently 
a " dame du monde," was in evening dress, wearing some 
magnificent diamonds, while it w^as very patent that those 
of her own social status had made it a point to dress as 
simply as possible. I have never been able to find out the 
name of the lady ; I had not seen her before, I have not seen 
her since. 

At about a quarter to nine the doors of the stage-boxes 
were flung back, and the guests of the evening appeared. 
But alas, they were not the chief members of the Commune, 
only the secondary characters. It is doubtful, though, whether 
the former could have been more magnificently attired than 
were the latter. Their uniforms w^ere positively hidden be- 
neath the gold lace. 

Immediately, the band struck up the inevitable " Mar- 
seillaise ; " the spectators in the upper galleries joined in the 
chorus ; the building shook to its foundations, and, amidst 
the terrible din, one could distinctly hear the crowds on the 
Boulevards re-echoing the strains. The occupants of the 
state boxes gave the signal for the applause, then the curtain 
rose, and Mdlle. Agar, in peplos and cothurnus, recited the 
strophes once more. When the curtain fell, the audience 
rushed to the foyer or out into the open air ; at any rate, the 
former was not inconveniently crowded. Among those stroll- 
ing up and down I noticed the lady of the diamonds, on the 
arm of a rather common-looking individual in a gorgeous 
uniform. I believe I caught sight of the American Minister, 
but I will not be certain. 

This time the curtain rose upon an act of a comedy ; the 
spectators, however, did not seem to be vastly interested ; they 
were evidently waiting for the duo to be sung by Madame 
Ugalde and a tenor whose name I do not remember. He 
was, I heard, an amateur of great promise. 

Scarcely had Madame Ugalde uttered her first notes, when 
a bugler of the franc-tireurs of the Commune stepped in front 
of an empty box and sounded the charge. The effect was 
startling. The audience rose to a man, and rushed to the 
exits. In less than five minutes the building was empty. I 
had let the human avalanche pass by. When I came outside 
I was told that it was a false alarm, or, rather, a practical 



478 AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. 

joke ; but no one re-entered the theatre. Thus ended the 
gala-performance of the Commune, and a careful observer 
would have had no difficulty in foreseeing the end of the 
latter. The bugler had, unconsciously perhaps, sounded its 
death-knell. 



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007 392 515 



